A government watchdog group is urging the Justice Department and Office of Government Ethics to investigate whether the $130,000 payment made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels was a violation of federal law, as it was not listed on President Trump’s public financial disclosure report.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Norm Eisen, chairman of the nonprofit, lodged a criminal and civil complaint Friday calling for the investigation. They also asked the agencies to look into whether Trump “knowingly and willfully” failed to report the payment.
“The more we learn about the Essential Consultations affair, the more it looks like something is missing from the president’s financial disclosures,” said Eisen, former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform. “If he failed to disclose this situation, we must ask, what else is he hiding?”
Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 and signed a nondisclosure agreement, which included the $130,000 payment, before the 2016 presidential election that blocked her from speaking publicly about the affair.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, acknowledged he facilitated the payment to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. The money was given to Daniels via wire transfer from Essential Consultations, a company Cohen created.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Cohen complained he hadn’t been reimbursed for the money given to Daniels.
CREW argues the $130,000 payment to Daniels, made just before the 2016 election, may have constituted a loan and therefore should have been reported by Trump as a liability on his public financial disclosure report.
“If President Trump failed to meet his public financial disclosure reporting requirements, he will have undermined the public trust that these laws are designed to protect,” the group wrote in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting Director of the Office of Government Ethics David Apol.
Daniels filed a lawsuit against Trump on Tuesday arguing the “hush agreement” should be voided, as Trump did not sign it. In the lawsuit, she claims Trump “at all times has been fully aware of the negotiations” with her, including the terms of the agreement and the $130,000 payment.
“President Trump’s failure to report the liability also may have been done willfully to avoid embarrassing questions about the underlying basis of the loan —that is, that the payment was made to Ms. Clifford shortly before the election pursuant to a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for her silence about the purported affair,” CREW said in its letter.
The White House has denied Daniels’ allegations that she had an affair with Trump and said the president was unaware of the $130,000 payment.
