Trump confirms he repaid lawyer for hush money paid to Stormy Daniels

By John Wagner US, The Washington Post, May 3 2018 -  President Trump said Thursday that his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen was reimbursed through a monthly retainer for a $130,000 payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to stop what Trump called “false and extortionist accusations” about a decade-old affair.  

In morning tweets, the president confirmed that Cohen entered into a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels, something Trump called “very common among celebrities and people 
of wealth.”  

Trump stressed that no campaign money was used to reimburse Cohen, calling it a “private agreement.”  

“Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction,” he wrote.  

Trump’s explanation on Twitter came the morning after former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a recent addition to Trump’s legal team, acknowledged for the first time that Trump had repaid Cohen — despite Trump’s assertion last month that he was unaware of the payment. Giuliani made the comments Wednesday night to Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel.  

Trump “didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know,” Giuliani told Hannity.  

Later, Giuliani said in an interview with The Washington Post that when Cohen paid the settlement to Daniels, he knew that Trump eventually would pay him back, as he was reimbursed for other expenses.