Trump admits cash to Cohen

PRESIDENT TRUMP should have disclosed Michael Cohen’s hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels as a financial liability last year, the government’s top ethics watchdog concluded Wednesday, potentially opening the President up to legal complications.

David Apol, acting director of the Government Ethics Office, said in a letter appended to Trump’s 2018 financial disclosure form that a payment Cohen made to “a third party” on behalf of the President during the 2016 election meets the requirements for a reportable “loan.”

The letter does not explicitly state what Cohen’s payment was for, but the President’s legal team and Cohen himself have previously acknowledged he paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about allegedly having sex with Trump in 2006. Cohen has also admitted the hush payment was issued 11 days before Trump’s election.

While Apol didn’t say so in his letter, the revelations mean Trump could have committed a crime by not disclosing the liability in his financial disclosure report last year. Apol referred his findings to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for any “inquiry” the Justice Department may pursue into the matter.

Trump acknowledged in the disclosure form for the first time that he fully reimbursed Cohen last year for “expenses” ranging between $100,001 and $250,000.

Ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani insisted Trump disclosed the repayments to Cohen in this year’s report out of “an abundance of caution.” “It’s not a loan, but he reported it anyway,” Giuliani, the latest addition to Trump’s legal team, told the Daily News, directly contradicting Apol’s findings. “It was in fact an expense, like paying a doctor. If you owe a doctor $2,000 and you pay him back, that’s not a liability.”

Giuliani claimed Trump didn’t list Cohen’s payment to Daniels in last year’s form because he didn’t need to. “There’s nothing to report,” Giuliani said.

Asked if Trump is worried, Giuliani delivered a one-word rebuke: “Nope.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal