What Did Michael Cohen Do With $774K In Secret Loans During Trump Campaign?
Image by Getty Images
By Dave Goldiner May 5, 2018
Michael Cohen reportedly took out a whopping $774,000 in loans during the presidential campaign, raising big new questions about whether he made illicit donations to President Trump’s White House push.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday night that Trump’s personal lawyer increased a personal credit line by $245,000 in early 2016, and shortly before that he accessed $529,000 from a new mortgage on a condo at Trump World Tower.
Cohen has already admitted to making a six-figure hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the campaign — and he and Trump and new adviser Rudy Giuliani have given several contradictory accounts of that payoff.
The new information suggest that Cohen may have made other similar payoffs to keep damaging information about Trump secret.
Giuliani and other sources have claimed that Trump repaid Cohen for $420,000 in unspecified expenses but have not said what they were for besides the Stormy payoff.
Any payments to help Trump’s campaign could be considered illegal campaign donations and even if they weren’t Cohen likely did not tell banks what the true purpose of the loans were.
Cohen is under investigation by federal prosecutors after special counsel Robert Mueller referred information about his alleged shady deals to the southern district of New York.
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.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
