In 2018, President Donald Trump found himself in the middle of a sex scandal after The Wall Street Journal revealed that adult-film star Stormy Daniels had received $130,000 for signing a nondisclosure agreement just before the 2016 presidential election about an affair she reportedly had with Trump in 2006.
Now it seems there’s more information about the deal — the alleged affair took place in Utah.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer who is serving a three-year federal prison sentence, alleges in his upcoming book that Trump was well aware of Cohen’s payoff to Daniels, according to The Washington Post.
Cohen’s book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” was obtained by The Post ahead of its Tuesday publication.
According to The Post, Cohen writes that Trump agreed to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence. Cohen then strategized with Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg on how to pay the adult-film star without attracting notice.
Cohen ended up taking a personal home equity loan to make the hush payment, the newspaper reported, even though he assumed Trump would fail to repay him as agreed.
“Stuck with the tab for Trump’s sex romp in a hotel room in Utah a decade ago,” Cohen writes. “This was the job I loved?”
Trump eventually repaid Cohen, agreeing to reimburse him in $35,000 monthly installments after he entered the White House as president, hiding the payments as fees for legal services and naming Cohen his personal attorney, The Post reported. Through that arrangement, Cohen asserts, Trump would get a tax break and legal services along with the money — another arrangement that benefited Trump.
Although Cohen was convicted for lying to Congress, violating campaign laws in service to Trump and for personal financial offenses, he now advocates for Trump’s defeat in November. In his book, Cohen describes Trump as “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”
The Trump Organization didn’t respond to The Washington Post for a comment.
Besides detailing Daniels’ payment, Cohen’s book also talks about Russia’s role in the 2016 election, episodes of Trump’s alleged racism, and the president’s “hatred and contempt” for his predecessor, Barack Obama.
