New York: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday said that US President Donald Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s USD 130,000 payment to adult star Stormy Daniels to “stay quiet” on their alleged affair. In an exclusive interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Giuliani, who recently joined President Trump’s legal team, said that the payment was “perfectly legal” and was not “campaign money”, The Hill reported.
“It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. They funnelled through a law firm and the president repaid it,” 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,” he added. Asked whether the US President was aware of the payment, Giuliani underscored that “he did not know the specifics of it in his knowledge”.
“He did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this,” he said when he revealed President Trump’s agreement with Cohen. On a related note, President Trump said last month that he did not know about the USD 130,000 payment made by Cohen. On Tuesday, Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, who publicly claimed a 2006 sexual encounter with President Trump, filed a fresh defamation suit against him. The lawsuit said that she suffered damages in excess of USD 75,000.
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