A night before CBS News’ “60 Minutes” aired its interview with Stephanie Clifford, better known as the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, President Trump had dinner with Michael Cohen, his longtime personal attorney. According to Clifford, Cohen paid her $130,000 in return for her silence about her alleged affair with President Trump.
Mr. Trump had dinner with Cohen Saturday night, CBS News’ Major Garrett reports. A day later, “60 Minutes” aired its interview with Clifford, in which she detailed what she claimed was a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in 2006. Mr. Trump denies the affair, and his lawyers are now threatening to sue her for breaching an agreement to not discuss the matter.
In exchange for her silence, Cohen gave Clifford $130,000 through a Delaware-based entity he created in October 2016. Daniels signed a non-disclosure agreement 11 days before the 2016 election.
“The story was coming out again,” Clifford told Anderson Cooper in the “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday. “I was concerned for my family and their safety.”
Clifford said she had agreed to sell the story of her sexual relationship with Mr. Trump to a publication in 2011 for $15,000. Two of the publication’s staffers told “60 Minutes” that they scuttled the story after Cohen threatened to sue, and Clifford says she was never paid. A few weeks later, Clifford said she was threatened by a man in Las Vegas.
“I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter,” Clifford said, recounting the incident. “Taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, getting all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.’ And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”
When stories about the non-disclosure agreement began to surface earlier this year, Clifford signed a statement, which was released by Cohen, saying that the story was false. Clifford now says that that denial was a lie, and that she signed it “because they made me feel like I had not choice…the exact sentence used was, ‘They can make your life hell in many different ways.'”
When pressed on whom “they” referred to, Clifford said, “I believe it to be Michael Cohen.”
Cohen denies threatening Clifford. However, he may have broken campaign finance laws in his arrangement with Clifford, and is currently subject to complaints to the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department.
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