During an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Rudolph W. Giuliani gave the impression that the $130,000 payment by Micheal Cohen to Stephanie Clifford aka Stormy Daniels before the Presidential Election Day in 2016 was made because of concerns about the coming vote and how it could affect President Donald Trump. However, that could be used to argue that it was an illegal campaign contribution.
Mr. Giuliani said on “Fox & Friends”, a Fox News program – “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton, Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job”. As Giuliani told it, Cohen entered into a legal agreement with Daniels and paid her without Trump’s knowledge. Cohen had previously made a statement echoing this, that he made the payment out of his own pockets, and Trump stated he knew nothing about the payment. Yet, in Trump’s tweets on Thursday, he contradicted this earlier statement. He also said to have paid a monthly retainer of $30,000 to Cohen and suggested that the payment to the adult star could not be considered a campaign contribution due to that.
This, however, clarifies that Trump made false statements to federal officials, a felony offense, by claiming no knowledge of the transaction between his lawyer and Daniels and the failure to disclose the payments could be seen as a violation of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Government watchdog groups have warned that knowingly violating the financial disclosure laws can be punished by a fine of up to $50,000 and a year in prison.
Giuliani also said in an interview, Sunday, on ABC New’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that “The agreement with Michael Cohen, as far as I know, is a longstanding agreement that Michael Cohen takes care of situations like this then gets paid for them sometimes” in referral to Daniels’ and then added “I would think if it was necessary, yes,” to a question of if there are other women Cohen had paid. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal also claimed she was intimate with Trump “many dozens” of times from 2006 to 2007 and at least 15 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
