Trump lawyer used private company to pay adult film star: report

President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen reportedly used a private company and a pseudonym to get money to an adult film star who allegedly had an affair with the president in 2006.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Cohen used Essential Consultants LLC to send a lawyer representing the actress who calls herself Stormy Daniels $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement concerning her relationships with Trump, who has been married to first lady Melania Trump since 2005. Cohen represented the Trump Organization at the time.

{mosads}

In making the transaction, both Cohen and Daniels’s lawyers used pseudonyms, according to the Journal. The deal allegedly occurred in October 2016, just weeks before voters headed to the polls.

This is great: Michael Cohen *could’ve* shielded his identity on the formation documents for the LLC he set up to preserve anonymity for the Stormy Daniels payment.

Instead, he listed himself as an “authorized person.” https://t.co/DGlbPg4BFZ pic.twitter.com/EiBrjDinhk

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) January 18, 2018

Cohen and the White House have denied the alleged affair with Daniels, and have not commented on the $130,000 payout, which the Journal first reported last week.

Trump “once again vehemently denies” the encounter, Cohen said in a statement last week.

“This is now the second time that you are raising outlandish allegations against my client,” Cohen said in the statement. “You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year; a narrative that has been consistently denied by all parties since at least 2011.” 

On Wednesday, InTouch published excerpts from an interview with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, from 2011 in which Clifford claims to have had sex with the president after meeting him Nevada in 2006.

“[The sex] was textbook generic,” Daniels said. “I actually don’t even know why I did it, but I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, ‘Please, don’t try to pay me.’ ”

Daniels also told the publication that, after the encounter, Trump kept saying: “ ‘I’m gonna call you, I’m gonna call you. I have to see you again. You’re amazing. We have to get you on ‘The Apprentice.’ ”