Did Michael Cohen Want Trump To Repay Him For Stormy Daniels Hush Money?
The bank used by President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, to wire $130,000 to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, has reported the suspicious payment to the Treasury Department.
Cohen wired the money on October 27, 2016, 12 days before the presidential election, from a First Republic Bank account.
The payment to Clifford was in return for her signing an agreement that she would not discuss any details of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
In January, campaign finance group Common Cause filed a complaint, announcing that Cohen’s payment violated election law because the money “was unreported in-kind contribution to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.”
Cohen has claimed the cash was his own way to help Trump by making Daniels’ “false” claim disappear. The Wall Street Journal also reported that friends said Cohen complained about not being reimbursed for the six-figure payoff, undercutting his own claim.
The lawyer’s response to the Wall Street Journal’s request for comment? “Fake News.”
Contact Haley Cohen at [email protected]
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO