President Trump on Thursday told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was unaware that his personal lawyer had paid a former adult film star to keep quiet about an alleged affair she had with the erstwhile Manhattan billionaire.
The attorney, Michael Cohen, admitted earlier this year to transferring $130,000 to actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about a tryst she says she had with Trump in 2006. The payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was made in late October 2016, just weeks before the presidential election.
Daniels and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, are currently embroiled in a back-and-forth with Trump's legal team. Daniels is suing to be released from the nondisclosure agreement she signed with Cohen, arguing that because Trump never signed the contract, it is void. Lawyers for Trump have asserted that Daniels will be hit with financial penalties for breaking the agreement by talking about the alleged affair.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Trump has steadfastly denied that he was ever involved with Daniels — though New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman notes that Trump's specific characterization of Cohen as "my attorney" could make "attorney-client privilege assertion likelier," as the legal saga drags on. Read more about Daniels' unlikely heroism here at The Week.
-
Nigerian Modernism: an ‘entrancing, enlightening exhibition’The Week Recommends Tate Modern’s ‘revelatory’ show includes 250 works examining Nigerian art pre- and post independence
-
To the point: the gender divide over exclamation marksTalking Point 'Men harbouring urges to be more exclamative' can finally take a breath – this is what using the punctuation really conveys
-
Macbeth: a ‘genuinely scary’ productionThe Week Recommends Daniel Raggett’s nightmarish modern-day staging is set in a boozer in gangland Glasgow
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
