Trump admits repaying Daniels hush money, says it’s legal
US PRESIDENT INSISTS THE MONEY HAD ‘NOTHING TO DO’ WITH ELECTION CAMPAIGN
President Donald Trump changed his story about not knowing of a $130,000 (Dh477,100) payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign, saying yesterday that he reimbursed his attorney through a monthly retainer to stop “false and extortionist accusations” about an affair.
Trump asserted in a Twitter posting that the money had “nothing to do with the campaign,” pushing back against allegations that Michael Cohen’s admitted payment to Daniels violated campaign finance laws.
That type of arrangement is “very common among celebrities and people of wealth,” he said in a subsequent message.
The president’s tweets confirmed statements first made by his new lead attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in a Fox News interview on Wednesday night. They contradicted not only Trump’s prior denials of knowledge of the payment, but Cohen’s own attorney’s repeated statements that Cohen didn’t receive reimbursement from Trump and made the payment out of loyalty to Trump.
‘Trump didn’t know’
Giuliani also asserted in an interview on Wednesday night with the Washington Post that Trump didn’t know what he was paying Cohen $35,000 per month for and that Trump didn’t know the funds had been used to repay Cohen for Daniels until Giuliani told him.
While both Trump and Giuliani said that presidential campaign funds were not used to make the payments and therefore didn’t violate campaign finance laws, others disagreed because the laws prohibit loaning candidates money during a campaign if the purpose is to impact the outcome of the election.
Walter Shaub, former director of the US Office of Government Ethics who resigned last year after clashing with the Trump administration, said that all of Trump’s payments to Cohen may have violated the laws. “Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, now admit that he had a $460,000 liability that he omitted from his financial disclosure report,” Shaub said.
Giuliani started the new line of defence during an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday, saying of the payment that Cohen “funnelled it through the law firm, and then the president repaid it.” Yesterday, Giuliani made the rounds of other Fox programmes, telling “Fox & Friends” hosts that Trump “didn’t know the details of this until we did.”
“Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016 in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani said. “Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to comment on the matter yesterday. Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, is in the midst of a legal firestorm over the payment to Daniels, which was made in exchange for Daniels’ silence about an alleged affair with Trump.