Letter from Michael Cohen claiming Donald Trump did NOT reimburse him for hush money paid to Stormy Daniels appears to fly in the face of the star witness’s grand jury testimony
- Bombshell document, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, could cripple prosecutors’ pursuit of criminal charges against Trump
- Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, is the star witness in the case over which Trump reportedly faces imminent arrest for campaign finance violations
- But in a February 2018 letter Cohen’s attorney wrote that ‘Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds’ and that ‘neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign reimbursed Mr. Cohen’
Michael Cohen claimed he was not reimbursed by Donald Trump or his organization for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a 2018 letter to federal authorities, contradicting his recent grand jury testimony,
The bombshell document, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, could throw a wrench in the works of prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump over the payments.
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and the star witness in the case over which Trump reportedly faces imminent arrest, claims that Trump got him to pay $130,000 to Daniels to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with the real estate mogul, just days before the 2016 presidential election.
He says Trump reimbursed him with personal funds, and later pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law over the hush money.
After canceling today’s session, the grand jury has been asked to return at noon Thursday, when prosecutors ‘may present one more witness,’ a court official told DailyMail.com.
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony to Congress given a year later.
Cohen said under oath that Trump ‘asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair,’ and that ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.’
But in a February 8, 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan wrote: ‘Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds’, and that ‘Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.’
The letter was written in response to an FEC probe launched after complaints of campaign finance violations, lodged by Paul Ryan and the organization Common Cause.
‘In a private transaction in 2016, before the U.S. presidential election, Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford,’ Cohen’s lawyer, who worked at McDermott Will & Emery, wrote.
‘Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.
‘Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, which are entirely speculative, neither Mr. Cohen nor Essential Consultants LLC made any in-kind contributions to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., or any other presidential campaign committee.
‘Mr. Cohen has not been a government employee during any of the relevant time period. The payment in question does not constitute a campaign contribution or expenditure and, therefore, the FEC lacks jurisdiction over this matter. The complainants have not and cannot present any evidence to the contrary. Accordingly, the complaint should be dismissed.’
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony to Congress given a year later.
Cohen said under oath that Trump ‘asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair,’ and that ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.’
He provided exhibits including a copy of a $130,000 wire transfer to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and ‘a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 – when he was President of the United States – pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me’.
Trump’s lawyers are sure to kick up a stink over the FEC letter, and will likely argue that it casts enough doubt on Cohen’s testimony that his testimony to the grand jury empaneled in the current criminal case against Trump should be thrown out.
The FEC letter is dated months before Cohen flipped to prosecutors and pled guilty to campaign finance violations over the hush money payments – giving prosecutors leeway to argue that Cohen was still lying to protect his boss at the time.
Two months after the February 8 2018 letter, rumors began to swirl that Cohen might flip if he faced serious charges over his work for Trump.
‘They’re going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a canary that sings,’ Trump defender Alan Dershowitz said in April that year.
When testifying to the House Oversight Committee in February 2019, Cohen himself cited Trump’s July 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki as a turning point that led to him switching sides. At the summit, Trump accepted Putin’s denial of interference in the 2016 election – and was widely criticized as kowtowing to the Russian leader.
Angles that Manhattan prosecutors are reportedly pursuing include potential charges that Trump falsified business records by characterizing the hush money as legal fees. This would only reach the level of a misdemeanor under New York law.
Other crimes, including money laundering or campaign finance violations, will also likely require prosecutors to prove that Trump knew about and directed the wrongdoing – something that Cohen vehemently testifies to.
Trump’s ex attorney has testified to the grand jury, as did Trump ally Robert Costello on Monday.
Costello, another lawyer who has represented Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, told reporters that he testified to the grand jury about an alleged 2018 conversation with Cohen, in which he claimed Cohen said he made the $130,000 payment to Daniels on his own, and that it was his idea, not Trump’s.
‘Michael Cohen did this on his own,’ Costello said. ‘I said, “Why would you do that?” He said: “Because I wanted to keep this secret. Even secret from my own wife… I didn’t want Melania [Trump] to know. I didn’t want my wife to know.”’
Cohen rubbished Costello’s claims in a subsequent interview, claiming he was using Trump’s playbook to ‘muddy the waters’.
‘I don’t know what he’s talking about. He’s making up so many stories here,’ he said.
Trump posted in all-caps on his social media site, Truth Social, on Sunday that Costello would be ‘THE MOST IMPORTANT WITNESS TO GO BEFORE THE NEW YORK CITY GRAND JURY.’
Cohen’s former attorney who wrote the February 2018 letter to the FEC, Stephen Ryan, declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.
He is no longer working at McDermott Will & Emery, and said that he no longer represents Cohen.