Rudy Giuliani: Trump repaid Cohen $130,000 for payment to porn star Stormy Daniels

Agencies
May 3, 2018

Washington, May 3: In a startling revelation, President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that Trumprepaid his personal attorney $130,000 in a deal made just before the 2016 election to keep porn star Stormy Danielsquiet 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 attorney said the money to repay Michael Cohen had been "funneled ... 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 nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the presidential election.

Asked aboard Air Force One whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: "No." Trump 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."

The White House referred questions to the president's personal legal team.

Giuliani, who joined Trump's legal team last month, said the president had repaid Cohen over several months, indicating the payments continued through at least the presidential transition, if not into his presidency. He also said the payment "is going to turn out to be perfectly legal" because "that money was not campaign money."

No debt to Cohen is listed on Trump's personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017.

Giuliani also described the payment to Daniels as "a very regular thing for lawyers to do."

Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called the comment "a stunning revelation."

"Mr Trump evidently has participated in a felony and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people," he said.

Giuliani made the statements to Fox host Sean Hannity, who has his own connection to the case. It was recently revealed in court that Hannity is one of Cohen's clients. Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice and said that it "never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions."

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife gave birth to his youngest child, and was paid to keep quiet as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now seeking to invalidate. She has also filed a defamation suit against Trump after he questioned a composite sketch she released of a man she says threatened her to stay quiet.

The White House has said Trump denies having a relationship with Daniels.

Cohen had said previously: "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly." He notably did not include the president personally.

Asked about Cohen's denial, Giuliani said that he didn't know if Cohen made the payment without asking Trump but that he had "no reason to dispute that."

The revelation from Giuliani came as Cohen was under escalating legal pressure. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement.

Daniels' lawsuit over the hush deal has been delayed, with the judge citing the criminal investigation.

The payment to Daniels has raised numerous legal questions, including whether it was an illegal campaign contribution and, now, loan.

Law firms advance expenses for clients as a matter of course, and so there's nothing inherently improper about a lawyer covering a particular payment and then being reimbursed for it. In this case, though, the client who apparently reimbursed the expense was running for president and the money was paid just days before the election, raising questions about whether Cohen's law practice was functioning as a vendor for the campaign and whether the expense was therefore an unreported campaign expenditure. If so, that could be legally problematic.

A key question is timing. If Cohen or Trump could establish that discussions with Daniels over the payment long predated his run for office, that could help them with the argument that the money was a personal rather than political expense.

"It obviously increases the president's exposure to potential campaign finance violations, but it also makes him look terrible," said Sol Wisenberg, a defense attorney who was a deputy independent counsel during the Starr special counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton.

"I don't understand the Giuliani strategy," he added. "Maybe it's been too long since he's been in the criminal justice field."

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News Network
June 3,2020

Washington, Jun 3: US President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday announced investigations into foreign digital services taxes it says are aimed squarely at American tech firms.

Following a similar trade investigation against France last year, the US Trade Representative office now is looking into taxes in Britain and the European Union, as well as Indonesia, Turkey and India.

"President Trump is concerned that many of our trading partners are adopting tax schemes designed to unfairly target our companies," USTR Robert Lighthizer said in a statement.

"We are prepared to take all appropriate action to defend our businesses and workers against any such discrimination."

Washington opposes the efforts to tax revenues from online sales and advertising, saying they single out US tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix.

The US and France have agreed to negotiate till the end of the year over a digital services tax Paris approved in 2019, after USTR found them to be discriminating and threatened retaliatory duties of up to 100 percent on French imports such as champagne and camembert cheese.

Trump has embroiled the US in numerous trade disputes since taking office in 2017, including a months-long trade war with China that cooled with the signing of a partial deal in January.

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News Network
April 12,2020

Apr 12: India and other South Asian countries are likely to record their worst growth performance in four decades this year due to the coronavirus outbreak, the World Bank said on Sunday.

The South Asian region, comprising eight countries, is likely to show economic growth of 1.8 per cent to 2.8 per cent this year, the World Bank said in its South Asia Economic Focus report, well down from the 6.3 per cent it projected six months ago.

India's economy, the region's biggest, is expected to grow 1.5 per cent to 2.8 per cent in the fiscal year that started on April 1. The World Bank has estimated it will grow 4.8 per cent to 5 per cent in the fiscal year that ended on March 31.

"The green shoots of a rebound that were observable at the end of 2019 have been overtaken by the negative impacts of the global crisis," the World Bank report said.

Other than India, the World Bank forecast that Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh will also see sharp falls in economic growth.

Three other countries - Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives - are expected to fall into recession, the World Bank said in the report, which was based on country-level data available as of April 7.

Measures taken to counter the coronavirus have disrupted supply chains across South Asia, which has recorded more than 13,000 cases so far - still lower than many parts of the world.

India's lockdown of 1.3 billion people has also left millions out of work, disrupted big and small businesses and forced an exodus of migrant workers from the cities to their homes in villages.

In the event of prolonged and broad national lockdowns, the report warned of a worst-case scenario in which the entire region would experience an economic contraction this year.

To minimize short-term economic pain, the Bank called for countries in the region to announce more fiscal and monetary steps to support unemployed migrant workers, as well as debt relief for businesses and individuals.

India has so far unveiled a $23 billion economic plan to offer direct cash transfers to millions of poor people hit by its lockdown. In neighbouring Pakistan, the government has announced a $6 billion plan to support the economy.

"The priority for all South Asian governments is to contain the virus spread and protect their people, especially the poorest who face considerable worse health and economic outcomes," said senior World Bank official Hartwig Schafer.

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News Network
April 23,2020

Geneva, Apr 23: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday (local time) said that the COVID-19 crisis will not end any time soon, with several countries only in the initial stages of the fight against the virus.

"Make no mistake, we have a long way to go. Coronavirus will be with us for a long time. There is no question that stay at home orders and other physical distancing measures have successfully suppressed transmission in many countries," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference.

"Most countries are in the early stages of their epidemics. And some, which were affected early in the pandemic, are now starting to see a resurgence in the number of cases," he added.

COVID-19 has infected more than 2.6 million people around the world and a total of 1,83,027 people have died due to coronavirus, according to data from US-based Johns Hopkins University.

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