Trump: Payment not campaign money
Lawyer Giuliani: Trump knew about payment to actress.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday directly contradicted his earlier statements that he knew of no payment to Stormy Daniels, the pornographic film actress who says she had an affair with him.
Trump said he paid a monthly retainer to his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, and suggested that the payment by Cohen to the actress could not be considered a campaign contribution.
The president’s comments reiterated an explosive announcement late Wednesday by one of his recently hired attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, who said on Fox News that the president reimbursed Cohen for the payment to actress Stephanie Clifford, who performs as Stormy Daniels. Though Giuliani described his interview as part of a strategy, the disclosure caught several Trump advisers by surprise, sending some scrambling Thursday morning to determine how to confront the situation.
In three Twitter posts Thursday morning, Trump repeated some of what Giuliani said a day earlier, specifically that Trump repaid a $130,000 payment Cohen made to Clifford just days before the presidential election in 2016.
Giuliani and Trump said this removed the question of whether it was a campaign finance violation. Trump also continued to deny the affair.
“Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA,” Trump wrote. “These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.”
The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said Thursday that she could not comment on the president’s legal strategy. In comments on “Fox & Friends,” she referred viewers to Giuliani’s remarks and the president’s tweets.
The changing accounts came as a surprise to the attorneys of Clifford and Cohen and are forcing some of Trump’s advisers to prepare for a new round of questions from the public.
As of a few hours before Giuliani went on TV, his revelations were not part of a wider strategy, beyond whatever conversations Giuliani and Trump had, two people close to the president’s team said. Some of Trump’s allies were frustrated that they, once again, had no advance warning of the new narrative, making it more difficult to discuss it on TV.
The president’s tweets Thursday had far more formal and legalistic language than his typical morning messages to the world. It was not immediately clear whether the tweets were composed by Trump or if they were written by one of his attorneys or advisers, which happens on occasion.