The lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels said that President Trump’s personal lawyer and Daniel’s then-lawyer Keith Davidson had “extensive communications” about when the $130,000 payment in October 2016 was made in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump.
“There were extensive communications between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson in October 2016 relating to the timing of this payment and the need for this payment to be made prior to the election,” Michael Avenatti told MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday.
“Extensive communications relating to the need for the payment to be made, when it was made and as to related to potential influence on the election,” he added.
[Also read: Trump breaks his silence on Stormy Daniels saga]
Avenatti noted that those involved with the nondisclosure agreement “knew the importance of the payment as it related to the election,” and said that it is “completely bogus” to argue the payment wasn’t connected to the election, which occurred in November 2016.
“There’s no question it had everything to do with the election,” he said.
The comments come after Rudy Giuliani, who joined Trump’s legal team last month, revealed to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday that Trump paid Cohen back for the money he gave to Daniels.
Since that interview, both Giuliani and Trump have sought to clarify, amid backlash and concern that there may have been a violation of campaign finance laws, that Trump did not know specifically about the hush money agreement and that Cohen received a monthly retainer completely separate from Trump’s campaign.
Trump tweeted Friday that Cohen “received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA.”
