For almost two months, President Trump has been involved in a lawsuit filed by the pornographic actress, Stormy Daniels. Since she first decided to sue the president for defamation on April 30, Stormy Daniels has had a surge of fame as more details about her affair with Trump have resurfaced.
The Wall Street Journal published an article on Jan 12 detailing an arrangement made by Michael Cohen in which he paid $130,000 to Daniels a few weeks before the start of the 2016 election. At the time of the article’s publication, Michael Cohen did not comment on the payment; however, he stated that Trump denies the affair with Daniels.
A month after WSJ broke the news of the payment, on Feb 14, Cohen said to the New York Times “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…The payment to Ms. Clifford [Daniels] was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.” The New York Times reports that Cohen stated he made the payment with money out of his own pocket.
According to the Hill, on April 5, Trump broke his silence on payment to Daniels by stating he had no knowledge of the deal. When asked why the payment was made, Trump stated, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”
On May 2, in an interview with Sean Hannity, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and an attorney of the President, revealed that the President did know about the payments to Daniels and reimbursed the $130,000 to Cohen; Cohen’s statements during the interview directly contradict Trump’s earlier statements about the situation.
On Friday Michael Cohen told Politico that he is no longer playing an active role as part of the president’s legal team.
