Rudy Giuliani admits Donald Trump repaid lawyer US$130,000 in hush money to porn star, contradicting US president
Former New York mayor Giuliani, now one of Trump’s lawyers, said the payment to Michael Cohen ‘is going to turn out to be perfectly legal’ because it did not involve ‘campaign money’
In a startling revelation, US President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that Trump repaid his personal lawyer US$130,000 in a deal made just before the 2016 election to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about her tryst with the president, directly contradicting Trump’s statements about the hush money.
During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Hannity, the former New York City mayor and US lawyer said the money to repay Michael Cohen had been “funnelled … through the law firm and the president repaid it.”
Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, 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, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”
The comments contradict statements made by Trump several weeks ago, when he said he didn’t know about the payment to Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement she signed days before the presidential election.
Asked on board Air Force One whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: “No.” He also said he didn’t know why Cohen had made the payment or where he got the money.
In a phone interview with Fox and Friends last week, however, Trump appeared to muddy the waters, saying that Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal”.
Trump tried to clarify the matter on Thursday in a series of tweets.
