More Details Emerge on Trump, Stormy Daniels

Newspaper finds a paper trail about a $130K payment; another tidbit involves a magazine
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 19, 2018 6:28 AM CST
Report: How Trump Lawyer Paid Porn Star for Silence
In a 2009 photo, Stormy Daniels visits a local restaurant in downtown New Orleans.   (AP Photo/Bill Haber, File)

Yet more details have emerged about President Trump's alleged relationship with a porn star. For one, the Wall Street Journal thinks it has found the paper trail through which Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, $130,000 to keep quiet. Cohen established a company in Delaware in October 2016 called Essential Consultants LLC and used it to send a check to a lawyer representing Clifford, called "Peggy Peterson" in the matter. Cohen apparently chose Delaware because the state has relatively strong laws guarding the privacy of such companies, though the Journal found a document listing him as its "authorized person." At the time, just ahead of the election, Clifford was reportedly in talks to appear on Good Morning America to discuss the relationship she had with Trump a decade earlier.

The second set of details is more salacious. Mother Jones unearthed emails from a political consultant who was advising Clifford as she flirted with a run for the Senate in Louisiana back in 2009. In one of those emails, the consultant mentioned to another political consultant that Clifford had some potential big backers, including Trump. When the second consultant expressed surprise that Clifford was friendly with Trump, the first one wrote back: "Yep. She says one time he made her sit with him for three hours watching ‘shark week.’ Another time he had her spank him with a Forbes magazine." Both consultants confirmed they exchanged the emails to Mother Jones, which notes that an issue of Forbes from the fall of 2006 featured Trump on the cover. Cohen and the White House have denied any such relationship between Trump and Clifford. (More President Trump stories.)

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