Michael Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf? Twitter’s @AliasVaughn calls būllśhįt
Tonight in the “paper of record” (which definitely smells a rat):
Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, said on Tuesday that he paid $130,000 out of his own pocket to a pornographic-film actress [Stephanie Clifford, who performs under the stage name stormy Daniels] who had once claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. …
“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,” Mr. Cohen said in a statement to The New York Times. “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”
He declined to answer several follow-up questions, including whether Mr. Trump had been aware that he made the payment, why he made the payment or whether he had made similar payments to other people over the years.
Mr. Cohen has previously said that Mr. Trump has denied an affair with Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels.
One of our favorite Twiiterati, @AliasVaughn, calls būllśhįt in this thread:
You read that right. And this is how you know there IS an illegal campaign contribution involved. This is being disclosed bc Cohen was CORNERED by a complaint filed by watchdog group “Common Cause”.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, says that he paid $130,000 out of his own pocket to Stormy Daniels, NYT reports. https://t.co/NdyGSzgS7G
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 14, 2018
Cohen is adamant that HE PAID PERSONALLY and NO ONE REIMBURSED him. Cohen says this in an OFFICIAL statement to NYT. Does he think ANY of us buy this?
The most obvious point is WHY would he pay $130k to her if nothing happened. Problem is this: there are RECEIPTS of the payment that he can’t escape, so he HAS TO admit the payment happened.
He funneled the money through a Delaware LLC, which would NOT be necessary at all if he just paid Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket.
What tells you that he is OF COURSE lying is the fact he REFUSED to answer ANY follow-up questions such as “what was the motivation for the payment?” “Did Trump know?” “did you make other similar payments over the years?”
What this absolutely PREPOSTEROUS claim tells me is that Cohen is desperate to CONTROL the narrative on this bc he knows that something BIG is coming. Such as “We have receipts of the payment, and the affair of course DID happen, and the payment was illegal”.
I also think a major sexual scandal involving Trump, MUCH worse than this one, will hit soon. Like, you know, discovery for that Summer Zervos lawsuit?
Mark my words: this is a very poor attempt to control the narrative before the you-know-what hits the fan. There is NO WAY Cohen would have said this unless he KNEW everything is about to explode in their faces.
There are CLEAR FEC violations involved here, and the problem here is so serious, Cohen felt like saying “oh hey, I have a great heart and just paid $130k in hush money out of my own pocket!” Something NO ONE sane would ever believe.
BTW, last I checked attorneys CANNOT pay out of their own pocket to fix clients’ problems, bc that would mean being disbarred? (pls correct me if I’m wrong on this one). Sooo… Trump wasn’t his client? He was operating as his picciotto?
The real story here, I repeat is that this is a desperate attempt to CONTROL A NARRATIVE… I don’t know what the narrative is here YET, but it’s clear something BIG is about to hit about illegally paying hush money, and I don’t mean just to Stormy Daniels.
I expect news from watchdog group Common Cause ASAP on this. It’s obvious this is a lie, and it’s equally obvious no one would tell such a non believable story, unless they were desperate.
My sensation (I DO NOT have intel on this… yet) is that we’re about to be hit with a MAJOR Trump scandal, involving hush money payments (which we know were MANY) to women Trump had affairs with / harassed / abused.
We’ll know soon enough, meantime
A) THIS CONFIRMS the affair DID take place, and was such a problem that it cost $130k to keep secret
B) This also CONFIRMS Cohen lied MULTIPLE times about it.
C) So, can Stormy Daniels now TALK about [it]? Bc Cohen admitted to paying her.Something REALLY bad is coming and they’re desperate to get ahead of the narrative. And they used Haberman (of course) to push their own narrative.
And Seth Abramson puts the cherry on top:
Hey, here's a crazy thought: if Cohen is lying about every aspect of the Stormy Daniels pay-off, and he is, maybe he's lying about every aspect of his involvement with Russian nationals and Felix Sater during the 2016 campaign, too?
Nah…that's *too* crazy. What am I thinking?
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) February 14, 2018
Stay tuned…
