Trump discovered Cohen payments ‘later on’

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The US President’s days in the White House might be numbered after his former lawyer implicated him in court over hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

Michael Cohen, 51 — who once boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump — admitted paying them at the behest of his client.

Both women claim to have had sex with Trump in 2006, after he married First Lady Melania.

As US stocks dived into the red amid the turbulence, President Trump was under growing pressure to face impeachment over the seedy fiasco, dubbed by Washington insiders as the “sex, lies and audiotape” scandal.

Stormy, 39, sold her story about her trysts with Trump — including how she spanked him on the bottom with a magazine bearing his own picture — but it did not make it to print. She was given $130,000 (£100,000) to keep quiet before the 2016 presidential election and signed a non-disclosure agreement before the vote.

Michael Cohen today admitted paying both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to not sell their story to the media

Like Stormy, Karen shopped her story around before the election, too, telling of how he treated her like a “prostitute” after they met at the Playboy mansion in 2006.

Karen eventually sold it to the National Enquirer for $150,000 (£116,000) but the publication, whose CEO is a personal friend of Trump, never ran it.

Last month a leaked tape from 2016 revealed Trump and Cohen discussing reimbursing the magazine to suppress the story.

The recording is reportedly one of a dozen that the FBI seized from Cohen during raids this year.

But could Trump be prosecuted?

Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said yesterday: “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Trump?”

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, said on Tuesday: “November (the mid-term elections) is a referendum on impeachment — an up or down vote. Every Trump supporter needs to get with the programme.”

It was just four months after the birth of his youngest son Barron in March 2006, following his marriage to Melania the previous year, that Trump met Stormy.

The porn star — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — says she had “textbook” unprotected sex with Trump, then 60, at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada, of which her adult film company was a sponsor.

Stormy, who was 27 at the time, told a US magazine that he invited her to dinner and she found him watching TV in his pyjamas when she arrived at his room.

She said: “I was like, ‘Ha, does Mr Hefner know you stole his outfit?’ I was actually really mean to him.

“He got all huffy and tried to play it off and was like, ‘Oh, I just thought we would relax here’.

We ended up having dinner in the room.

“He talked about himself and bragged about his photo on a magazine.

I said, ‘Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it’.

“So he turned around and pulled his pants down a little, he had underwear on and stuff, and I just gave him a couple of swats.”

Stormy, who appeared in 2007 romcom Knocked Up, said Trump told her not to worry about his marriage to Melania.

The pair had sex, which was “nothing crazy”, according to the model.

Stormy added: “I actually don’t even know why I did it, but I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, ‘Please, don’t try to pay me’.”

She told US TV show 60 Minutes in March — in an interview watched by an incredible 23million viewers — of how she was allegedly THREATENED by a mystery man to keep quiet.

The thug allegedly approached her in a car park in Las Vegas, prompting her representatives to release a sketch of the culprit.

Stormy recalled: “A guy walked up on me and said, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story’.

“Then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mum’.

Then he was gone. I was rattled…”

Continues: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7079369/presidents-former-lawyer-admits/
By James Beal

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