Sanders: I found out about Trump reimbursement from Giuliani’s interview
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that she didn’t know that President Trump had reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels until Rudy Giuliani made the revelation on Fox News the night before.
“The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,” Sanders said during the press briefing when asked when she learned that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment related to a nondisclosure agreement, despite previously claiming he was unaware of it.
{mosads}”The White House press office wouldn’t coordinate with the president’s outside legal team on legal strategy,” she added.
The Washington Post reported earlier Thursday that Sanders was among the White House staffers who were unaware that Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, would make the revelation.
CNN’s Jim Acosta also pressed Sanders over information she had given reporters earlier about Trump not being aware of the payment, asking if she was “lying to us at the time or were you in the dark.”
“I’ve given the best information that I had at the time,” Sanders said.
Giuliani, a former mayor New York City, made the explosive revelation that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, an adult-film star who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.
Trump addressed the payment in a series of tweets early Thursday, saying that Cohen was paid through a monthly retainer.
He added that the arrangement was made “to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.”
Cohen had previously said the payment, which was made weeks before the 2016 presidential election, was done with his own funds and that he was not paid back.
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