Documents show that Michael Cohen made a $50,000 payment to a tech company during the 2016 presidential campaign, thus helping his former boss win the presidency, CNBC reports.
Legal documents released on Tuesday as part of Cohen’s guilty plea show that the same year he paid two women hush money to keep them from talking about sexual affairs they had with then-candidate Donald Trump, Cohen also made a previously undisclosed payment for work “during and in connection with the campaign,” prosecutors say.
It is unclear what company the money was paid to or what kind of work it did for Cohen. However, the revelation suggests that the President’s former lawyer and fixer may have been doing much more for his boss and his campaign than just making hush money payments.
Cohen then reported the expense to the Trump Organization a few months later, which it said was “payment for tech services.”
Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign responded to questions about the $50,000 payment and whether they knew the money was paid to help Trump win the White House. The White House likewise refused to say whether President Trump knew his lawyer paid the tech company for election help.
Since it remains unclear when exactly the money was paid or what tech services were used, it cannot be determined whether Cohen violated any laws by not reporting it as a campaign expense.
The revelation only furthers Cohen’s claim that he has information about President Trump that might be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller who is looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to aid the Republican candidate.
In that respect, Cohen’s lawyer said his client was “happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows, not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election … but also, knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.”
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