Trump says he didn’t know about Stormy Daniels payment
U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he didn’t know about the $130,000 US payment his personal attorney made to Stormy Daniels, issuing a firm denial in his first public comments about the adult-film actor who alleges she had an affair with him.
Asked aboard Air Force One whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: “No.”
Trump also said he didn’t know why his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, had made the payment.
“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael,” he said, adding that he didn’t know where Cohen had retrieved the money.
Until now, Trump had avoided questions on Daniels, though the White House has consistently said Trump denies there was a relationship. Still, he has been dogged by the focus on the porn actor, who says she had a sexual encounter with the president in 2006 and was paid to keep quiet about it as part of a nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels is seeking to invalidate that agreement.
Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted in response to Trump on Thursday: “We very much look forward to testing the truthfulness of Mr. Trump’s feigned lack of knowledge concerning the $130k payment as stated on Air Force One.”
“As history teaches us,” he added, “it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath.”
Daniels, one of several women pursuing potentially damaging legal action against Trump, has kept up the highest profile in the media, helped by a punchy Twitter feed, a widely viewed interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes and a camera-ready attorney who has become a fixture on cable news.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has offered to return the $130,000 as she tries to “set the record straight.” She has said she had sex with Trump once in 2006, and their relationship continued for about a year. Trump married his current wife, Melania, in 2005, and their son Barron was born in 2006.
Cohen has said that he paid the $130,000 out of his pocket and that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Daniels and he was not reimbursed for the payment.
Avenatti told 60 Minutes he has documents showing that Cohen used his Trump Organization email address in setting up the payment and that the nondisclosure agreement was sent by FedEx to Cohen at his Trump Organization office in Trump Tower.
Trump asked a federal judge this week to order private arbitration in the case. Trump and Cohen filed papers in federal court in Los Angeles asking a judge to rule that the case must be heard by an arbitrator instead of a jury.
Avenatti said he would oppose private arbitration, arguing it should be heard by the American public.
Avenatti also wants Trump to give sworn testimony in the case, but a federal judge ruled this week that those efforts were premature.