Trump admits reimbursing lawyer Michael Cohen $130,000 for hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels

Agencies
May 4, 2018

Washington: US president Donald Trump on Thursday admitted he reimbursed his lawyer for a $130,000 payment to a porn star, ending months of White House denial.

Trump tweeted that his personal lawyer Michael Cohen used a retainer to pay off Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had sexual relations with the now president.

But Trump slammed claims of an affair with Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — as "false and extortionist." The sexual encounter allegedly took place in 2006, four months after Trump's wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron.

Cohen's payment was made days before the November 2016 US presidential election, potentially violating campaign financing laws.

In a burst of tweets, Trump denied the hush money was connected to his campaign, calling it a "private agreement."

Trump also said non-disclosure agreements were "very common among celebrities and people of wealth."

The admission came at an awkward time for Trump, hours before he hosted religious leaders at the White House for a National Prayer Day event, which the first lady did not attend.

Trump ignored questions about the issue from the press, and guests, many of whom were political supporters of the president, shouted "shame on you" at reporters.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who recently joined the president's legal team, was first to disclose on Wednesday that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment over a period of several months.

That news shocked many including White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who has for months claimed Trump had no prior knowledge of the payment.

"The first awareness I had was during the interview last night," Sanders admitted.

"I'm giving the best information I have. Some information I am aware of and some I'm not. When I can answer, I will," she said.

In early April the FBI raided Cohen's home, office and hotel room.

NBC News on Thursday reported that the FBI has for months been monitoring the list of Cohen's calls, although not necessarily listening in, as the network first reported.

Money's source

Giuliani told Fox News host and Trump supporter Sean Hannity that the money was funnelled through a law firm "and the president repaid it."

He added that the payment did not represent a campaign financing violation because it was "not campaign money."

Giuliani told The New York Times he had documentation proving Trump had reimbursed the sum, which he said "removes the campaign finance violation" prospect.

"Some time after the campaign is over, they set up a reimbursement, $35,000 a month, out of his personal family account," Giuliani told the Times, adding that Trump gave Cohen between $460,000 and $470,000 via this method to repay the sum to the porn star as well as "incidental expenses."

Trump had previously denied all knowledge of the payment to Daniels, before admitting last week that Cohen struck a "deal" with the porn star on his behalf.

Asked by reporters on Air Force One earlier this month about the transaction, Trump said: "You'll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You'll have to ask Michael," he said.

Pressed on whether he knew where Cohen got the money to make the payment, he said: "No, I don't know. No."

'Blatantly lied'

Giuliani also told The Wall Street Journal Trump was "probably not aware" of the payment at the time it was made, having given Cohen broad "discretion to solve" a variety of issues.

Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti reacted swiftly to the revelation, accusing the US president of lying.

"We predicted months ago that it would be proven that the American people had been lied to as to the $130k payment and what Mr. Trump knew, when he knew it and what he did in connection with it," he wrote on Twitter.

"Every American, regardless of their politics, should be outraged by what we have now learned. Mr. Trump stood on AF1 and blatantly lied."

Daniels filed a lawsuit against the president on Monday for defamation after he trashed her claim that she had been threatened by a man representing Trump in 2011.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 31,2020

New Delhi, Jan 31: The Supreme Court Friday dismissed the plea filed by one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, Pawan Gupta, seeking review of its order rejecting his juvenility claim.

The review plea filed earlier in the day was taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna. 

On January 20, the apex court had rejected the plea by Pawan who had challenged the Delhi High Court's order dismissing his juvenility claim.

Advocate A P Singh, who is representing Pawan in the case, said he filed a petition on his behalf seeking review of the top court's January 20 order on Friday.

While dismissing the plea, the top court had said there was no ground to interfere with the high court order that rejected Pawan's plea and his claim was rightly rejected by the trial court as also the high court.

It had said the matter was raised earlier in the review petition before the apex court which rejected plea of juvenility taken by Pawan and another co-accused Vinay Kumar Sharma and that order has attained finality.

Singh had argued that as per his school leaving certificate, he was a minor at the time of the offence and none of the courts, including trial court and high court, ever considered his documents.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi Police, had said Pawan's claim of juvenility was considered at each and every judicial forum and it will be a travesty of justice if the convict is allowed to raise the claim of juvenility repeatedly and at this point of time.

The trial court on January 17 issued black warrants for the second time for the execution of all the four convicts in the case -- Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay (26) and Akshay (31) -- in Tihar jail at 6 am on February 1. Earlier, on January 7, the court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.

As of now, only Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies including the clemency plea which was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17 and the appeal against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on January 29.

Convict Akshay's curative petition was dismissed by the top court on January 30. Another death row convict Vinay moved mercy plea before President on January 29, which is pending.

Singh has also approached the trial court seeking stay on the execution scheduled on February 1, saying the legal remedies of some of the convicts are yet to be availed.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
January 9,2020

Noida, Jan 6: A fire broke out at the ESIC Hospital in Noida on Thursday morning and firefighting was underway, officials said.

The blaze broke out in the basement of the seven-storey hospital building located in Sector 24, a police official said.

Fire tenders were rushed to the spot after the Fire Department was alerted about it around 8 am, the official said.

After that, a search was done to see if anyone was trapped in the building, he said.

The cooling process is now underway.

He said the fire had engulfed the ground, first and second floors of the building, except the basement.

Police said they received information about fire at Kaveri printing press at 2:45 am, when the manager Yogesh called them. The press owners have been identified as Atul and Anuj Goyal, residents of Sukhdev Vihar, they said.

The man who died in the fire has been identified as Phool Dev, from Bihar, who used to work as a help there. Dev went inside the building in the night to sleep before the fire started and died due to suffocation, the fire department official said.

The body has been kept at Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital and the post-mortem will be done once the family reaches here, police said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
April 27,2020

Seoul/South Korea, Apr 27: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is "alive and well", a top security adviser to the South's President Moon Jae-in said, downplaying rumours over Kim's health following his absence from a key anniversary.
"Our government position is firm," said Moon's special adviser on national security Moon Chung-in, in an interview with CNN on Sunday. "Kim Jong Un is alive and well."

The adviser said that Kim had been staying in Wonsan -- a resort town in the country's east -- since April 13, adding: "No suspicious movements have so far been detected."

Conjecture about Kim's health has grown since his conspicuous absence from the April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather Kim Il Sung, the North's founder -- the most important day in the country's political calendar.

Kim has not made a public appearance since presiding over a Workers' Party politburo meeting on April 11, and the following day state media reported him inspecting fighter jets at an air defence unit.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was not gravely ill, two South Korean government sources said on Tuesday, following reports he had undergone a cardiovascular procedure and was now in "grave danger."

His absence unleashed a series of unconfirmed media reports over his condition, which officials in Seoul previously poured cold water on.

"We have nothing to confirm and no special movement has been detected inside North Korea as of now," the South's presidential office said in a statement last week.

South Korea's unification minister Kim Yeon-chul reiterated Monday that remained the case, adding the "confident" conclusion was drawn from "a complex process of intelligence gathering and assessment".

'Grave danger'

Daily NK, an online media outlet run mostly by North Korean defectors, has reported Kim was undergoing treatment after a cardiovascular procedure earlier this month.

Citing an unidentified source inside the country, it said Kim, who is in his mid-30s, had needed urgent treatment due to heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.

Soon afterwards, CNN reported that Washington was "monitoring intelligence" that Kim was in "grave danger" after undergoing surgery, quoting what it said was an anonymous US official.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected reports that Kim was ailing but declined to state when he was last in touch with him.

On Monday, the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that Kim had sent a message of thanks to workers on the giant Wonsan Kalma coastal tourism project.

It was the latest in a series of reports in recent days of statements issued or actions taken in Kim's name, although none has carried any pictures of him.

Satellite images reviewed by 38North, a US-based think tank, showed a train probably belonging to Kim at a station in Wonsan last week.

It cautioned that the train's presence did not "indicate anything about his health" but did "lend weight" to reports he was staying on the country's eastern coast.

Reporting from inside the isolated North is notoriously difficult, especially regarding anything to do with its leadership, which is among its most closely guarded secrets.

Previous absences from the public eye on Kim's part have prompted speculation about his health.

In 2014 he dropped out of sight for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane. Days later, the South's spy agency said he had undergone surgery to remove a cyst from his ankle.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.