Rudy Giuliani said President Trump repaid his personal lawyer Michael Cohen the $130,000 he gave to porn star Stormy Daniels as part of an agreement for her silence about her alleged affair with Trump more than a decade ago.
“Funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it,” Giuliani said of the payment in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
? Giuliani says Trump repaid Cohen the $130,000 used as hush money for Stormy Daniels pic.twitter.com/pqNtZthgwf
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) May 3, 2018
Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, was referring to Essential Consultants LLC, the firm Cohen created in October 2016 to pay $130,000 of his own money to Daniels.
Later in the interview, Hannity gave Giuliani another chance to address the matter, saying it was because “I think we were talking about two different things.”
But the former New York City mayor didn’t reverse course and said Trump reimbursed Cohen over a period of several months.
“I was talking about the $130,000 payment, the settlement payment, which is a very regular thing for lawyers to do,” Giuliani said.
Right before the 2016 election, Cohen paid Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, the $130,000 thr
ough the shell company and signed a nondisclosure agreement with her so she could not discuss her alleged extramarital affair with Trump. Daniels filed a lawsuit earlier this year, claiming that it should be nullified because Trump didn’t sign the NDA.
His statement appears to contradict what Trump has said about not knowing about the $130,000 payment.
Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal in a follow-up interview that that his comments were not at odds with Trump’s, noting that Trump was “probably not aware” of the payments at the time.
“Cohen was his lawyer and had discretion to settle, as I have had for clients ultimately paying for it,” Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal.
“Remember October 2016, hardly will recall any of that in detail. I don’t remember it clearly either,” he added.
Daniels expanded the lawsuit to include Cohen, who she says defamed her for insinuating she has lied. Earlier this week, she also filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump for suggesting she lied as well.
Giuliani also said the money was not campaign money and therefore there was no campaign violation. Daniels’ team has accused Cohen of violating campaign finance laws because the payment goes beyond the lawful limitations permitting individuals to give no more than $2,700 to a federal candidate.
Giuliani’s disclosure came as a surprise to Daniel’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
“I am stunned and speechless,” Avenatti said, per CNN. “If this is accurate, the American people have been lied to and deceived for months. And justice must be served.”
Meanwhile the White House declined to get involved in the chaos that resulted from Giuliani’s interview.
“We have nothing to say about it. The president has outside counsel and that’s what I would have to refer you to,” said Hogan Gidley, deputy White House press secretary, said on Fox News later in the evening.
