Stormy Daniels: Donald Trump's personal lawyer claims he paid porn actress $130,000 before election

Michael Cohen works as a personal attorney for President Trump
Getty Images
Tom Powell14 February 2018

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer has claimed he paid $130,000 out of his own pocket to a porn actress who once claimed to have had an affair with the future president.

Attorney Michael Cohen told the New York Times he was not reimbursed by the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign for the payment to Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

He said he made the payment in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, but denied it was an attempt to affect the result.

Mr Cohen wrote: "The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone."

Former adult film actress Stormy Daniels
Getty Images

He told the New York Times he had delivered a similar statement to the Federal Election Commission in response to a complaint filed by Common Cause, a government watchdog group.

Common Cause had asked the FEC to investigate the source of the $130,000 (£95,000) payment and determine whether it represented an excessive campaign contribution.

Mr Cohen told the Times: "The allegations in the complaint are factually unsupported and without legal merit."

The White House has denied the affair allegations
AFP/Getty Images

The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Mr Cohen had arranged the payment to Ms Clifford in October 2016 to keep her from publicly discussing the alleged sexual encounter during the presidential campaign.

A week later, In Touch magazine published a 2011 interview with Ms Clifford in which she claimed she and Mr Trump had a sexual encounter after meeting at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, a year after the billionaire businessman’s marriage to his third wife, Melania.

At the end of January, Ms Daniels said in a statement that the alleged affair never occurred.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in