Reporter: “Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?”
President Trump: “No.” pic.twitter.com/wHTR7o5lqB
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 5, 2018
President Trump freely rants about every subject on Twitter, so it has not gone unnoticed that he’s been completely silent and evaded all questions regarding his alleged 2006 affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. On Thursday, NBC News tweeted this clip of a reporter asking Trump about the scandal on Air Force One, and amazingly, Trump answered a few questions. First, he stated that he had no knowledge of the $130,000 hush payment to Daniels, which his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, oddly claimed to have personally paid from his home equity line. Trump also told the reporter that he had no idea where Cohen got the money.
So, is Trump hanging Cohen out to dry as a strategic move, or is the president simply (and finally) giving into temptation by talking freely on the subject? During Daniels’ recent 60 Minutes interview, she told Anderson Cooper that she accepted the hush payment because she felt threatened (by a stranger in a parking lot), and she also believed that Cohen would make her life “hell” with further legal maneuvers. There’s plenty there that Trump would hope to distance himself from, and there’s also the matter of Cohen possibly violating laws regarding individual campaign contribution levels — given that this hush payment was made immediately before the November 2016 election.
Fortunately, the reporter in the above clip never asked Trump about Stormy’s claim that she spanked the real estate mogul with a copy of Forbes. That’s something that no one really needs to hear about directly from the president.
Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels, did not waste any time tweeting about this development.
We very much look forward to testing the truthfulness of Mr. Trump's feigned lack of knowledge concerning the $130k payment as stated on Air Force One. As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath. #searchforthetruth #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 5, 2018
Good (actually GREAT) things come to those who wait!!! The strength of our case just went up exponentially. You can't have an agreement when one party claims to know nothing about it. #nodiscipline #thanksforplaying #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 5, 2018