Inside sources have told the Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump paid out a former porn star just before the 2016 election, in order to keep her from leaking details of an affair they had in 2006.
The WSJ reports that Trump Organisation lawyer Michael Cohen arranged payment to Stephanie Clifford – known in her films as Stormy Daniels – in October 2016 after negotiating with her lawyer.
Apparently, Clifford had said privately that she and Trump had had a tryst at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006 – a year after Trump married his current wife, Melania.
Former porn star Stephanie Clifford has privately alleged the encounter with Mr. Trump took place after they met at a July 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Mr. Trump married Melania Trump in 2005.https://t.co/KZhdex7UKE
— erica orden (@eorden) January 12, 2018
Here’s Trump and Stormy Daniels at event while his wife was at home taking care of newborn pic.twitter.com/zljJOk8yy5
— Jonathan Nafarrete (@Jonathan360) January 12, 2018
While there is no implication that this encounter was nonconsensual (unlike a number of other allegations against the US President), people are still pretty scandalised that the bloke was paying out hush money so smoothly. Clifford reportedly was paid pretty much as soon as she asked, after she’d apparently been in talks with Good Morning America about appearing to discuss the Republican candidate.
The White House has denied the whole thing, saying, “These are old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.“
Cohen just sent me his statement about WSJ report. Says Trump denies alleged encounter. Doesn’t address payments, “These rumors have circulated time and again since 2011. President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms.Daniels.” https://t.co/47s7igo4Ii
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) January 12, 2018
Clifford has released a statement denying that anything ever happened between her and Trump, which is, of course, exactly what someone who’d been paid US$130,000 to keep quiet would do.
Cohen also passed along an image of this letter to me, signed from “Stormy Daniels” and dated Jan 10, 2018, denying rumors of hush money from Trump and calling them “completely false.” https://t.co/J0taBJZLP5 pic.twitter.com/MX4qgVhyN2
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) January 12, 2018
https://twitter.com/Redpainter1/status/951921485895041026
Trump has also been accused of trying to pay another porn star, Jessica Drake, US$10,000 for sex at around the same time. She refused.
Looks like Trump posed with Stormy Daniels at same event at which he met Jessica Drake, porn star who claims Trump offered her $10K for sex…https://t.co/FDG0ClXEII pic.twitter.com/Op3UXtZNFJ
— @mbaram (@mbaram) January 12, 2018
