Did Trump Use His Own Money To Pay Off The Pornstar
What We Know About Trump's $130,000 Payment to Stormy Daniels
In the landslide of news final week about guilty pleas, immunity deals and criminal convictions, y'all no doubt heard something amazing: President Trump's ex-lawyer said in open up courtroom that Mr. Trump directed him to pay a pornographic film star quite a bit of money non to tell the earth that they had sexual activity.
Other than that, you might be somewhat hazy on the details.
After all, the porn star in question, Stephanie Clifford, whose screen proper noun is Stormy Daniels, is not the but figure from the adults-just section to have made a cameo appearance during President Trump's time in part. (There has also been a onetime Playboy model and a former procuress, the Manhattan Madam.)
Moreover, Mr. Trump's own statements well-nigh the arrangement with Ms. Clifford — a $130,000 payment given to her by the president's quondam lawyer, Michael D. Cohen — have, shall nosotros say, evolved over time.
On Tuesday, Mr. Cohen'southward guilty plea in federal court in Manhattan brought to light new revelations about the payoff — and the efforts to conceal it.
Here's everything that we now know — and don't — about Mr. Trump's deal with Ms. Clifford.
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Stormy Daniels: Timeline of a Trump Scandal
Here's a guide to understanding the White House scandal later Michael Cohen's admission that President Trump directed him to give the porn star Stormy Daniels hush money.
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"A guy walked upwards on me and said to me, leave Trump lonely, forget the story. And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful piffling girl — it would be a shame if something happened to her mom.'" Reporter: "Did you know nigh the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?" "No." "Do you know where he got the coin to make that payment?" "No. I don't know." "Depending on what is independent within those documents, I think there is meaning danger to the president." "The fact is, just trust me, they're going to come up with no violations there." "All right, you hateful the —" "Yeah, payments are perfectly legal."
Information technology all started with a golf tournament and "Shark Week."
Ms. Clifford, now 39, first met Mr. Trump in July 2006 — four months afterwards his son Barron was born — at American Century Championship, a celebrity golf game tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev.
At that signal, she was a porn star with more than 60 credits to her name in movies like "Slave to Love" and "The Witches of Breastwick." She had gone to the event to promote her adult-film company, Wicked Pictures.
According to an interview Ms. Clifford gave to In Impact magazine, she and Mr. Trump shared a golf-cart ride, after which he asked her to dinner. Dressed for an evening on the boondocks, she said she showed up at Mr. Trump'southward hotel room where, she claims, the married mogul greeted her from the burrow while watching "Shark Calendar week" on TV in his pajamas.
They dined in his room and eventually had sexual activity, she said. ("Textbook generic," equally she put it.)
Ms. Clifford claims the two met again, including at Mr. Trump's private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.
Mr. Trump has denied the affair.
Call back that "Access Hollywood" video?
Ms. Clifford gave the In Touch interview in 2011, but given its sensitive subject field, the magazine decided not to publish it at the fourth dimension.
Cutting to 5 years subsequently, when Mr. Trump, now running for president, was besieged by questions about his relationships with women.
Many had come frontward that year to accuse him of everything from unwelcome advances to groping and harassment.
The furor culminated on Oct. vii, 2016, when The Washington Post published the explosive "Access Hollywood" video in which Mr. Trump was heard declaring that, as a "star," he had license to grab women "by the pussy."
It was and so, prosecutors say, that Ms. Clifford's agent, Gina Rodriguez, decided it was fourth dimension for her customer to try over again to publicize the tale of what she said was her affair with Mr. Trump.
According to court papers, ane day after the video was released, Ms. Rodriguez reached out to someone she thought could help her: a tiptop editor at American Media Inc., a conglomerate whose flagship publication was the National Enquirer.
Her message to the editor was articulate: Ms. Clifford, every bit the government later put information technology, was "willing to make public statements and confirm on the record" her assignations with Mr. Trump.
How a supermarket tabloid protected Donald Trump.
Fifty-fifty though the National Enquirer was a supermarket tabloid, known for publishing gossip, it turned out to be the worst place possible to take a story almost Mr. Trump's infidelities.
David J. Pecker, the publication's owner, was non only a longtime friend of Mr. Trump. More to the indicate, every bit the presidential race was heating upwardly, Mr. Nib had turned the Enquirer into something similar an early-alert system for Trump-related scandals, prosecutors said.
Whenever the tabloid heard "negative stories" nigh Mr. Trump'due south relationships with women, the government said, Mr. Pecker and his staff would work to have them "purchased and their publication avoided" — a tactic that was known as catch-and-impale.
[Here's an-depth look at Mr. Trump's relationship with the supermarket tabloids .]
In approaching the Enquirer, Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Clifford triggered this early-warning system.
Instead of rushing into print their scoop well-nigh a major party's candidate for president, Mr. Pecker, having caught the story, sent it to exist killed by somebody he trusted: Mr. Trump'southward lawyer and logroller, Mr. Cohen.
A contract, but no signature.
It was not the beginning fourth dimension Mr. Cohen had done this.
A few months before, prosecutors said, Mr. Cohen had worked with Mr. Beak to catch and kill the story of the onetime Playboy model Karen McDougal, who had likewise claimed an matter with Mr. Trump.
Although that deal — for $150,000 — was never sealed, Ms. McDougal was represented in the negotiations by a lawyer from Los Angeles, Keith Davidson.
Every bit it happened, Mr. Davidson also represented Ms. Clifford. And with the presidential election simply a month away, he and Mr. Cohen went to work once more, rapidly hitting a bargain to keep Ms. Clifford quiet.
Nether the terms of the deal, Mr. Cohen agreed to pay Ms. Clifford $130,000 through Essential Consultants LLC, a shell company he created. (He got the money, prosecutors said, through a fraudulently obtained habitation-equity loan.)
Ms. Clifford, in turn, agreed to sign a nondisclosure contract with Mr. Trump. In it, she was identified as Peggy Peterson and he as David Dennison.
In that location was simply one problem: Mr. Trump never signed the papers. That omission could cause him future legal bug because Ms. Clifford'due south current lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has sued him.
Mr. Avenatti is claiming that the nondisclosure contract that Ms. Clifford signed is void considering Mr. Trump never bothered putting his signature on it.
The story gets out anyway.
Ii things happened at this point.
First, Mr. Trump was elected president. 2nd, presently after his inauguration, In Bear upon finally published Ms. Clifford'due south account of the affair.
When Mr. Cohen learned that the interview was about to released, he scrambled to book Ms. Clifford on Sean Hannity's Play tricks News tv show, according to a separate lawsuit that Mr. Avenatti filed in June against Mr. Cohen and Mr. Davidson.
Mr. Cohen wanted Ms. Clifford "to lie to the American public about her human relationship with Mr. Trump," according to the lawsuit.
Simply after a serial of frantic texts to Mr. Davidson — "Can you lot call me delight?" "Please call me" — Mr. Cohen abruptly changed his heed well-nigh putting Ms. Clifford on TV.
Why?
The lawsuit quotes him as sending a cryptic text to Mr. Davidson.
"The wise men all believe the story is dying," Mr. Cohen wrote, "and don't think it'south smart for her to do any interviews."
Mr. Trump's story keeps changing.
During the campaign and after, Mr. Trump's aides repeatedly denied that he slept with, allow alone paid, Ms. Clifford, attacking the idea with words similar "outlandish" and "absolutely, unequivocally" false.
But the president's position on the affair, like that of those close to him, has gradually shifted over fourth dimension.
In May, for instance, Mr. Trump's lawyer, Rudolph Westward. Giuliani, told Mr. Hannity on Fox that the president not only knew about the hush-money payment, but had as well reimbursed Mr. Cohen for his expenses.
On Tuesday, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to, amongst other things, working with Mr. Pecker to pay Ms. Clifford, at Mr. Trump'due south behest, to influence the election.
Then, on Wednesday, Mr. Trump made his latest statements on the scandal. Going on Fox himself, he best-selling that, yes, he knew about the payoff — but only later on Mr. Cohen had made it.
Contrary to established law, he went on to insist that, even though he had paid the $130,000 back to Mr. Cohen, none of it amounted to a law-breaking.
The payments did not "come up out of the campaign," Mr. Trump said. "They came from me."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/nyregion/stormy-daniels-trump-payment.html
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