Michael Cohen claimed that Donald Trump or his organization did not reimburse hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a 2018 letter to federal authorities, contradicting his recent grand jury testimony,
The bomb document, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, could ruin the jobs of prosecutors bringing criminal charges against Trump over the payments.
Cohen, the former Trump attorney and lead witness in the case for which Trump reportedly faces imminent arrest, claims Trump made Daniels pay $130,000 to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with the real estate mogul, just a few days. before the 2016 presidential election. election.
Michael Cohen is seen Wednesday after news broke that the grand jury meeting on the pending indictment of Donald Trump has been cancelled.
The grand jury has been asked to return at noon on Thursday, when prosecutors “can present one more witness,” a court official told DailyMail.com. Donald Trump (pictured in West Palm Beach, Florida, last week) is not expected to appear for his arraignment in New York until next week.
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony before Congress given a year later. Cohen said under oath that Trump “asked me to pay off an adult movie star he had an affair with” and that “Mr. Trump instructed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to prevent money from being traced to him that could negatively affect his campaign.
He says Trump reimbursed him from personal funds and then pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law for hush money.
After canceling today’s session, the grand jury has been asked to return at noon on Thursday, when prosecutors “can present one more witness,” a court official told DailyMail.com.
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony before Congress given a year later.
Cohen said under oath that Trump “asked me to pay off an adult movie star he had an affair with” and that “Mr. Trump instructed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to prevent money from being traced to him that could negatively affect his campaign.”
But in a February 8, 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan, wrote: ‘Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds,’ and that ‘neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, nor did they reimburse Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.’
The letter was written in response to an FEC investigation launched into allegations of campaign finance violations filed by Paul Ryan and the organization Common Cause.
“In a private transaction in 2016, prior to the US Presidential Election, Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford,” wrote Cohen’s attorney, who He worked at McDermott Will & Emery.
Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, nor did they reimburse Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.
“Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, which are entirely speculative, neither Mr. Cohen nor Essential Consultants LLC made in-kind contributions to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., or any other presidential campaign committee.
On Twitter, adult actress Daniels, 44, mocks Trump, calling him “small,” using the sudden influx of traffic to her page to promote her new X-rated movie Lawless.
‘Mister. Cohen has not been a government employee during any of the relevant time periods. The payment in question does not constitute a campaign contribution or expense and, therefore, the FEC has no jurisdiction over this matter. The complainants have not presented and cannot present any evidence to the contrary. Consequently, the complaint must be dismissed.’
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony before Congress given a year later.
Cohen said under oath that Trump “asked me to pay off an adult movie star he had an affair with” and that “Mr. Trump instructed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to prevent money from being traced to him that could negatively affect his campaign.”
He submitted evidence including a copy of a $130,000 wire transfer to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and “a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017, when was President of the United States – by virtue of the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me.’
Trump’s lawyers are sure to raise an uproar over the FEC letter, likely arguing that it casts enough doubt on Cohen’s testimony to get his grand jury testimony thrown out in the current criminal case against Trump.
The FEC letter is dated months before Cohen went to prosecutors and pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations over the hush money payments, giving prosecutors leeway to argue that Cohen was still lying to protect his boss at the time.
The protests are expected to peak once Trump is indicted, which could happen as soon as tomorrow.
Trump supporters toured the highway that runs from West Palm Beach to Palm Beach and to the former president’s home in Florida.
Two months after the February 8, 2018 letter, rumors began to surface that Cohen might go insane if he faced serious charges for his work for Trump.
“They are going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a singing canary,” Trump supporter Alan Dershowitz said in April of that year.
Testifying before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019, Cohen himself cited Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July 2018 as a turning point that led him to switch sides. At the summit, Trump accepted Putin’s denial of interference in the 2016 election and was widely criticized for bowing to the Russian leader.
Angles reportedly being pursued by Manhattan prosecutors include potential charges that Trump falsified business records by characterizing hush money as legal fees. This would only rise to the level of a misdemeanor under New York law.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will be “personally responsible” for any injuries caused by the protests surrounding the possible impeachment of Donald Trump, the head of the judicial officers union told DailyMail.com. He is pictured arriving at his office on Wednesday.
Other crimes, including money laundering or campaign finance violations, will also likely require prosecutors to show that Trump knew of and directed the wrongdoing, something Cohen vehemently testifies to.
Trump’s former lawyer has testified before the grand jury, as has Trump ally Robert Costello on Monday.
Costello, another attorney who represented Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, told reporters he testified before the grand jury about an alleged 2018 conversation with Cohen, in which he claimed Cohen said he made the $130,000 payment to Daniels on his own. , and that it was his idea, not Trump’s.
“Michael Cohen did this on his own,” Costello said. ‘I said, ‘Why would you do that?’ He said: “Because I wanted to keep this secret. Even secret from my own wife… I didn’t want Melania (Trump) to know. I didn’t want my wife to know.”
Cohen dismissed Costello’s claims in a later interview, stating that he was using Trump’s playbook to “muddy the waters”.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s making up so many stories here,’ she said.
Trump posted in all caps on his social media site, Truth Social, on Sunday that Costello would be “THE MOST IMPORTANT WITNESS TO GO BEFORE THE NEW YORK CITY GRAND JURY.”
Cohen’s former attorney who wrote the February 2018 letter to the FEC, Stephen Ryan, declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.
He no longer works at McDermott Will & Emery and said he no longer represents Cohen.
