Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’s lawyer said on Wednesday that he was left “speechless” by Trump confirming that he reimbursed Michael Cohen for a secret payment that the adult-film actress alleges was meant to keep from going public with allegations of an affair.
“I have to tell you, I am rarely, as your viewers know, rendered speechless,” Avenatti told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “But I am absolutely speechless at this revelation and this admission.”
Avenatti’s comments came shortly after Rudolph Giuliani, one of Trump’s newer lawyers, said in a Fox News interview that the President reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement. The revelation goes against Trump’s claims that he knew nothing of the payment, which Cohen has acknowledged making out of his own money.
Avenatti also stated that the contradiction exposed an outright lie by the President, and should “outrage” Americans from all parties.
“I don’t care whether you’re on the left or on the right or in the center. I don’t care what your party affiliation is,” he said. “You deserve to be told the truth by your president and the people that stand at the podium at the White House briefing station or podium at the White House briefing conference, press conference, and answer questions.”
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims that she had an affair with Trump in 2006, months after the President’s wife gave birth to their son and is suing Cohen and Trump in an effort to dismiss the nondisclosure agreement.
President Donald Trump on Thursday defended the $130,000 given to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels as hush money, saying that nondisclosure agreements are “common among celebrities and people of wealth” and that none of the money came from his campaign adding that the payment was necessary to silence the adult-film actress’s “false and extortionist accusations.”
He also insisted that the payment was not at all tied to his 2016 presidential campaign.
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