Trump acknowledges he repaid lawyer for ‘Stormy’ hush money

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump acknowledged Thursday he repaid his personal lawyer for hush money given to porn actress Stormy Daniels after claiming previously he didn’t know about the payments.

But the money, paid just before the 2016 election to stifle her claims of an affair, “had nothing to do with the campaign,” the president tweeted.

Trump said his attorney Michael Cohen received a monthly retainer, which he used to pay the actress to sign an agreement not to talk about her allegations and thus “stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.”

Trump’s tweets outlining the arrangement came after Rudy Giuliani, one of his attorneys, said Wednesday that Trump reimbursed Cohen for $130,000 paid to Daniels.

During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Giuliani said the money to repay Cohen had been “funneled ... through the law firm and the president repaid it.”

Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: “He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know.

But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”

Speaking on “Fox and Friends” Thursday, Giuliani said Trump didn’t know all the details until “maybe 10 days ago.”

While stressing that Trump denies the relationship, he said Cohen may have seen $130,000 as “cheap.”

“They said it wasn’t true,” Giuliani said. “However, imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton. Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”

The comments appeared to contradict statements made by Trump several weeks ago when he said he didn’t know about the payment to Daniels. Giuliani later suggested to The Wall Street Journal that while Trump had repaid the $130,000, Cohen had settled the payment to Daniels without Trump’s knowledge at the time.

Giuliani’s revelation was hardly a shock in the West Wing, where many aides assumed the president at least had knowledge of Cohen’s work on his behalf.

In briefings and media appearances, however, White House aides have sought to avoid staking out a clear position on the matter, directing reporters to Trump’s own comments.

Still, the way Giuliani announced it — on live television and imprecisely — surprised Trump staffers and raised fresh worries about the president’s uneven legal team.

Law firms advance expenses for clients as a matter of course, so there’s nothing inherently improper about a lawyer covering a particular payment and then being reimbursed for it.

In this case, though, the client who apparently reimbursed the expense was running for president and the money was paid just days before the election.

That raises questions about whether Cohen’s law practice was functioning as a vendor for the campaign and the expense was, therefore, an unreported campaign expenditure. If so, that could be legally problematic.

We want to hear from you! Send us a message on WhatsApp at 18765508783, email us at editors@gleanerjm.com or onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com.