Trump’s Lawyer Claimed That He Personally Paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 & That It Had Nothing To Do With The Alleged Affair

After the Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump had allegedly previously had an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) in 2006 after meeting at a celeb golf outing, the White House fervently denied that any such encounter occurred.

However, Michael Cohen, one of many personal lawyers to Trump, admitted that a month before the 2016 election, he paid Clifford a lump sum of $130,000, according to a report from The New York Times on Wednesday.

In a statement to the Times, Cohen admitted to making the payment but said he will not disclose the reasoning as to why the star was paid such a large sum in the first place.

ABC News reports Cohen as saying, “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”

It seems rather bizarre that one of Trump’s lawyers would randomly, for unspecified reasons, decide to quietly give Daniels $130,000 a month before the election.  He goes on to say that the payment was “lawful” and “was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”

While Clifford had previously candidly discussed details of the alleged affair, she most recently (as of the end of January) denied that it had occurred at all, per the Washington Post.

Though Cohen maintains that the payment was a private transaction, the legal concerns aren’t soothed just yet. As Paul S. Ryan, vice president of litigation and policy at Common Cause, said in a statement to Vox: “Any payment by a person such as Cohen on behalf of or in consultation with a candidate to influence an election is an in-kind ‘contribution’ to the candidate under campaign finance law subject to a $2,700 limit and disclosure requirements,” he said. “Questions about the payment and the circumstances behind it must be answered and they must be answered under oath.”

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