Trump recently learned of payment to Stormy Daniels: White House

Washington: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders came to the defence of President Donald Trump on Thursday, after his conflicting statements about the hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels put a question mark on his credibility.

Sanders told press that the President initially did not know about the payment to Daniels but came to know later, which led to the conflicting claims, reported CNN.

“This was information the President didn’t know at the time, but eventually learned,” Sander said at the daily press briefing.

President Trump has denied the affair with Sanders and previously claimed that he didn’t know about any payment made by his attorney Michael Cohen in return for her silence on the alleged affair.

However, Trump’s new lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Wednesday that Donald Trump reimbursed the payment to Cohen.

Trump, in a series of tweets, admitted to reimbursing Cohen for payment to Daniels and defended himself saying Cohen received a monthly retainer for it which had “nothing to do with the campaign.”

He explained that the agreement “was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.”

Sanders, on her part, said she came to know that Trump had learned of the reimbursement, during Giuliani’s interview.

On being pressed about the credibility of information provided by the White House, the spokeswoman said, “We give the very best information we have at the time.”

Daniels has been locked in a legal battle with President Trump, seeking to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement she and Cohen had signed more than a decade ago.

In her previous lawsuit, the adult star is asking whether the hush agreement was legal and is looking at whether President Trump consented to it.

The adult star revealed that the deal was not valid because the US President “never signed it himself”. (ANI)