Trump Breaks Silence on Stormy Daniels: I Did Not Know About Lawyer’s $130,000 Payment
President Donald Trump spoke out for the first time about his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels — and claimed that he did not know about the $130,000 payment that his attorney, Michael Cohen, made to the adult film star.
Trump also claimed that he didn’t know where the money came from to pay Daniels.
One reporter asked aboard Air Force One: “Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?”
“No,” Trump replied.
“You have to ask Michael Cohen,” he added. “Michael Cohen is my attorney, you’ll have to ask Michael.”
Audio is pretty poor. But here’s Trump saying he didn’t know anything about the $130k to Stormy Daniels. pic.twitter.com/QBBaugUTTO
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 5, 2018
When asked where the money came from, Trump replied, “I don’t know.”
This claim is one that Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, plans to prove is untrue. He holds that Trump knew about the NDA agreement Daniels signed, and that because the agreement was not signed by him (under a pseudonym, “David Dennison”), it is null and void.
It is not a crime for Trump to lie to the press, but it is perjury for him to assert that he did not know about the agreement under oath and evidence later proves that he did. In this scenario, the president could be impeached — something Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti noted on Twitter:
We very much look forward to testing the truthfulness of Mr. Trump's feigned lack of knowledge concerning the $130k payment as stated on Air Force One. As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath. #searchforthetruth #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 5, 2018
[image via screengrab]
