Giuliani: Trump reimbursed Cohen for $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels

[Jimmy Higgins]

Does he have to be part of it? The agreement is that Stormy Daniels shuts up about the affair in exchange for $130,000. The payment was made by Cohen, so from Stormy's point of view the other party kept its part of the contract. Whether Trump himself knew about it or not is between him and his lawyer.

No, the other party did not keep their part of the contract because there was no other party. The fact that there was this separate person who gave her money isn't related to the NDA because that NDA specifies who the two parties involved in it are.

I've read the NDA. It specifies the two parties as: A) "EC LLC" and/or "David Dennison" aka Donald Trump, and "Peggy Peterson" aka Stormy Daniels. I think the "and/or" is crucial. DD doesn't have to sign if EC LLC signs, and vice versa, and Cohen signed it on behalf of EC LLC.

This steps well out of my knowledge on law (yeah, I know... "what knowledge?"). My question is whether "and/or" is legit here. "EC LLC" and/or "David Dennison"... a legal document can't possibly allow for a gray area, i.e. "and/or". Its nonsensicalness would be like saying "EC LLC" or not. To put "and/or" in there almost seems like splitting the NDA into two separate cases.

Based on a quick search, it seems the general feeling is that you don't use "and/or" in legal docs.

 

[Artemus]

Does he have to be part of it? The agreement is that Stormy Daniels shuts up about the affair in exchange for $130,000. The payment was made by Cohen, so from Stormy's point of view the other party kept its part of the contract. Whether Trump himself knew about it or not is between him and his lawyer.

But that would mean that only Cohen could enforce it, not Trump. Or at least that argument could be made. If Trump is saying he's not a party to the contract, he has no right to enforce it. For example, if my neighbor stopped making his car payments to Ford Financing, I couldn't go repossess his car in order to enforce the contract...

Oh Jesus, Trump just said that Giuliani will "get his facts straight ... he's still learning..."

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-nra-speech/index.html

So this entire thread has been decapitated by Trump's pinball-like mouth.

I hate it when the Stupid thread keeps spilling over into the other threads.

Now Giuliani claims that Trump didn't know he was paying Cohen back for the hush money. Seriously.

“I don't think the president realized he paid him (Cohen) back for that specific thing until we (his legal team) made him aware of the paperwork,” he said.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I hate it when the Stupid thread keeps spilling over into the other threads.

Now Giuliani claims that Trump didn't know he was paying Cohen back for the hush money. Seriously.

“I don't think the president realized he paid him (Cohen) back for that specific thing until we (his legal team) made him aware of the paperwork,” he said.

The man that squeezes a nickel between his ass cheeks in hopes it splits into two dimes was unaware of giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to his lawyer.

Giuliani told Sean Hannity it would have been politically problematic for news of the deal to break in the month before the election.

On Thursday morning he returned to Fox News and repeated the sentiment that if Daniels hadn't been paid days before the election, a public revelation from her could have turned the presidential race upside down.

"Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani said on "Fox and Friends," referring to Daniels' claim she had a one-night stand with Trump in 2006. Cohen and Trump aides have denied any affair.

But in his interview with NBC News Thursday night, Giuliani denied that his remarks amounted to an admission that the payment was a campaign contribution and argued the payment had nothing to do with the campaign.

Don't worry, he'll get his facts straight.

 

[Elixir]

Now Giuliani claims that Trump didn't know he was paying Cohen back for the hush money. Seriously.

“I don't think the president realized he paid him (Cohen) back for that specific thing until we (his legal team) made him aware of the paperwork,” he said.

Fat chance that that's true... but if it is, then Cohen is in trouble (of course he is "willing to take a bullet for Mr. Trump") - I don't think it;s cool for a "lawyer" to go rogue on the supposed behalf of his "client".
If Avenatti is truthin', Cohen is toast anyway - Mr. Avenatti claims to have strong evidence of Cohen's communications with Stormy's lawyer at the time (Davidson?), discussing the urgency of getting the NDA done prior to the election. And that's credible, as Stormy's former lawyer would have been obligated to turn over all related files to her new lawyer... popcorn time!

 

[starwater]

It's like there are desperately trying to find a lie that will work. So they retract the lie and try and new one.

 

[Elixir]

It's like there are desperately trying to find a lie that will work. So they retract the lie and try and new one.

True... at this point they're not even looking for something that would actually be legal; the best they can do is to try to find a lie they can sell in the court of public opinion, and implicates someone other than Trump. Someone is going down, once they settle on the lie that they think will protect Cheato. Scumbags.

 

[Bronzeage]

It's like there are desperately trying to find a lie that will work. So they retract the lie and try and new one.

True... at this point they're not even looking for something that would actually be legal; the best they can do is to try to find a lie they can sell in the court of public opinion, and implicates someone other than Trump. Someone is going down, once they settle on the lie that they think will protect Cheato. Scumbags.

It's perfectly legal for Trump to provide money from his personal fortune for any legal purpose. There's no limit on personal contributions to one's own campaign. That's not the real problem.

No one ever believed Cohen paid the $130,000. It's a ridiculous idea. The problem is in the details. How was the money actually handed over, and how was it accounted for? If it showed up in Trump's accounts as a deductible legal expense on his tax return, that's a problem. Cohen's problem maybe that Mueller's investigation revealed Cohen has been under reporting his income by millions of dollars a year. That gives the Feds enough leverage to make Cohen roll over like an SUV on ice. What the Feds have is not just tax evasion, but a conspiracy to evade taxes.

 

[Patooka]

It's like there are desperately trying to find a lie that will work. So they retract the lie and try and new one.

True... at this point they're not even looking for something that would actually be legal; the best they can do is to try to find a lie they can sell in the court of public opinion, and implicates someone other than Trump. Someone is going down, once they settle on the lie that they think will protect Cheato. Scumbags.

I question your use of the word "they". "I don't give a fuck who or what gets burned by this, get me out of this" sounds very Trump. It also fits in how Trump believes lawyers should act.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just wondering... wouldn't it make sense for Trump to just admit to campaign finance violation, pay the fines or whatever, and move on? It sounds to me that the case that Stormy Daniels violated the NDA is pretty strong, and he could easily settle that and prevent further leaks from Daniels.

She could then bring up the fact that it was signed under duress.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No, a contract is an agreement between two parties. If one of those parties doesn’t agree to it, then there’s no agreement.

More specifically in two ways: he didn't sign it, he claims he was not aware of it.

As an aside, this is a catch 22 for him. If he says he was aware of it and approved it, then he gets into other trouble. If he claims he was ignorant, then it is non-binding and she gets to talk.

Why? She agreed with Cohen not to talk about her affair with His Flatulence. Only Cohen can bring an action to punish her for talking. The important thing is she seems to have signed it under duress which makes it invalid.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's perfectly legal for Trump to provide money from his personal fortune for any legal purpose. There's no limit on personal contributions to one's own campaign. That's not the real problem.

Legal to provide it, yes, but doesn't it have to be reported as a campaign contribution?

 

[Elixir]

It's perfectly legal for Trump to provide money from his personal fortune for any legal purpose. There's no limit on personal contributions to one's own campaign. That's not the real problem.

Legal to provide it, yes, but doesn't it have to be reported as a campaign contribution?

Yeah, and that's why Giuliani is desperately trying construe the timing as a coincidence - even after shooting himself in the foot by publicly discussing how awful it would have been had it come out right before the election.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's perfectly legal for Trump to provide money from his personal fortune for any legal purpose. There's no limit on personal contributions to one's own campaign. That's not the real problem.

Legal to provide it, yes, but doesn't it have to be reported as a campaign contribution?

Yeah, and that's why Giuliani is desperately trying construe the timing as a coincidence - even after shooting himself in the foot by publicly discussing how awful it would have been had it come out right before the election.

Or how it was paid in installments, making it appear to be a banking related crime as well.

Apparently Giuliani didn't get the memo about how he is expected to lie, not to confirm Trump violated banking and campaign finance laws.

 

[Jayjay]

The things Giuliani said were probably something they anticipated would come out anyway, so the Trump team had him blurt out those details to control the narrative.

In general, I think Giuliani wasn't hired for his lawyer skillz, but to be a well-known public face on Fox and elsewhere.

 

[Underseer]

A firm tied to a Russian oligarch paid Cohen half a million dollars:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...0k-russian-oligarch-viktor-vekselberg-n872481

I suspect this is the reason Mueller is so interested in the Stormy Daniels case. If the Russians paid the porn star hush money in order to help Trump get elected, then the main issue here is no longer whether or not Trump violated campaign finance law. Instead, this is yet more evidence of treason collusion.

 

[Copernicus]

A firm tied to a Russian oligarch paid Cohen half a million dollars:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...0k-russian-oligarch-viktor-vekselberg-n872481

I suspect this is the reason Mueller is so interested in the Stormy Daniels case. If the Russians paid the porn star hush money in order to help Trump get elected, then the main issue here is no longer whether or not Trump violated campaign finance law. Instead, this is yet more evidence of treason collusion.

I suspect that the more serious legal issue here would be whether Cohen was engaged in influence peddling. It certainly looks like Trump got a lot from Russia in terms of help with his political campaign, but this is an actual transfer of funds. Mueller had questioned the Russian oligarch who paid this money to Cohen before the raid, I believe. There were also payments into this fund from other sources, for example AT&T, which was experiencing headwinds from Trump on its merger plans. These donors all "hired" Cohen for his valuable insights into the Trump administration. Insights like what they could get in exchange for all that money. There is now a question of whether a lot of that money somehow found its way into Trump's pocket. The presidency presents wonderful opportunities for shaking down businesses.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

One of the CEOs who paid Cohen (I forget which) managed to get a sit down meeting with Trump at Davos right after the final payment. That raises interesting questions about what role Hillary Clinton had with the Uranium One deal.

 

[Copernicus]

One of the CEOs who paid Cohen (I forget which) managed to get a sit down meeting with Trump at Davos right after the final payment. That raises interesting questions about what role Hillary Clinton had with the Uranium One deal.

Right. This one looks like it has Hillary Clinton's crooked fingerprints all over it.

 

[Copernicus]

Here is a nice synopsis of the money going in and out of Cohen's Essentials Consultants LLC: How money flowed through Michael Cohen’s multi-purpose shell company.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Oh man Cohen is fucked! Granted, I suppose this is how DC works, but usually the lawyer of a porn star isn't the one to break this sort of relationship. And who knows what else Mueller knows.