Trump Is Said to Know of Stormy Daniels Payment Months Before He Denied It

[riversedge]

Source: nytimes.


Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, Jim Rutenberg and Matt Apuzzo


May 4, 2018



President Trump had denied in April that he knew of a $130,000 hush payment made to a pornographic film actress who claimed to have had an affair with him. Al Drago for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump knew about a six-figure payment that Michael D. Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in April, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

How much Mr. Trump knew about the payment to Stephanie Clifford, the actress, and who else was aware of it have been at the center of a swirling controversy for the past 48 hours touched off by a television interview with Rudolph W. Giuliani, a new addition to the president’s legal team. The interview was the first time a lawyer for the president had acknowledged that Mr. Trump had reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payments to Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels.

It was not immediately clear when Mr. Trump learned of the payment, which Mr. Cohen made in October 2016, at a time when news media outlets were poised to pay her for her story about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. But three people close to the matter said that Mr. Trump knew that Mr. Cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from becoming public at the time the president denied it.

Ms. Clifford signed a nondisclosure agreement, and accepted the payment just days before Mr. Trump won the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump has denied he had an affair with Ms. Clifford and insisted that the nondisclosure agreement was created to prevent any embarrassment to his family..................................

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/us/politics/trump-hush-payment-stormy-daniels.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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Maddow just reported on this.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Trump and his dalliances/affairs/predilections

is just so disgusting

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. He can dip his wick in any consenting adult, but election payment violations & coverup are illegal.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. A married man

cannot dip his wick anytime he likes. It may be legal. It's still immoral, by most people's standards, including the fundamentalists.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Agreed. . . . nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. So, we have coverup of hush payment. Is it so hard to believe coverup of Trump-Russia?

[mobeau69]

4. Shear was just on the phone with Erin Burnett.

Get ready for a "fake news" tweet.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Belive Trump refused to

settle with Clifford for several years. It only happened when she threatened to go Public with here story.

[Corgigal]

6. Duh

He doesn't know much about anything, except his ledger balance.

NYT needs to read DU.

[More_Cowbell]

9. Trump doesn't pay bills that he legally owes to contractors

And he expects people to believe that he'd make a payment to avoid embarrassment to his family? He's been an embarrassment to his family his entire life.

[Grassy Knoll]

10. Bailiff, Whack His Pee Pee...

...

[C Moon]

11. What the hell are these Trump supporters thinking? Do ANY of them have families?

The freak fills every slot for what a bad person is.
It's unbelievable to me.
Crazy stuff we're living through, folks.
It's amazing what money can do.

[Honeycombe8]

12. Of course he did! Maybe not the exact amount, but he knew she was paid off.

This is how I imagine it may have gone down.

Trump in 2016: Mike, I need to care of something.
Cohen: Yeah? What?
Trump: There are some women out there. I need to make sure they don't talk.
Cohen: We talking NDAs and payoffs?
Trump: Yeah. Whatever.
Cohen: Okay. Consider it done. I'll do a catch and kill. I'll need the names and contact information. And a budget for this, for the payoffs, when you can get that to me. I'll do the usual...set up a corporation to make each payment. Unless you want somethin' else.
Trump: No, whatever is the usual. Just make sure they don't talk. I'll set up a budget & have my people get that to you, and the names and so forth. Maybe you can let me know what each one will take, moneywise. Hard to set up a budget until...
Cohen: Yeah. I'll talk to them and get a feel for what kind of money they'll take to keep quiet. Then I'll let you know after each one is done. I'll do the standard NDAs and so forth, with a false name for you.
Trump: Yeah. Gotta have another name. Can't be my name.
Cohen: Okay. I'll wait for the info on them, and get that taken care of.

[SWBTATTReg]

13. Wow...your narrative sounds very believable ... I wouldn't be surprised one bit...

This POS violates the importance of marriage by a long shot, and he plainly guilty of adultery. He already has a huge tendency to lie, and lie all of the time.

Can't believe a word he or anyone else in his admin. says anymore.

[Honeycombe8]

17. LOL. That's just how I imagine it went down.

As for adultery, that's not why he's in trouble. I'm not sure I even care much about that. A lot of people are unfaithful. I think that's only important when someone runs on a family values platform, which Trump sure did not.

It's the payoffs, tricking the women into thinking they had independent advice, silencing another's right to speak about her life, and laundering the money for the payoffs, as well as maybe not even signing the agreement to make it legal. Also, the agreements being written so one-sided...the woman gets very little, and yet she gets hit with millions of dollars of fines, if she speaks.

This is mob-like.

[Achilleaze]

14. republicans are totally behind Dirty Donny*s lies

republicans have earned themselves a reputation as the Party of Lies.


* aka republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief

[7962]

15. I'm SO tired of Stormy and her publicity hogging Avenatti. There are real problems with Trump.

Spend time on THOSE instead of this bullshit. The ONLY bad thing that could come of it would be a campaign violation. And that'll be tough to prove beyond doubt. And even if proven, its not something that sends one to jail or impeachment. Meanwhile, Stormy gets rich from it and Avenatti is already pitching his own TV show to networks.
Trump has no doubt got actual criminal dealings going on; current and past, that should be looked into. Spend time and resources on THAT.
If the "pussy tape" didnt move the voters, finding out about Stormy certainly wasnt going to change any votes either.

[Sunlei]

16. What Republican paid off the trump child rape case, 2 days before the election?

She was on TV with a high power lawyer threatening interview with press if no settlement money?

The child raped with court depositions from witness, one a trump employee?

[Nitram]

18. The fact that it took them so long and so many tries to come up with a "good" cover story

will not aid Trump's['s defense if this goes to court.