It has been a while since the Wall Street Journal, the paper that initially broke the story, has published a genuine bombshell related to the Stormy Daniels controversy. But it broke that streak Tuesday morning when it revealed that President Trump back in February tried to stop Daniels from sharing her story – even directing Michael Cohen, his son Eric Trump and a second outside attorney to try and formulate a plan from the Oval Office. Trump’s direct involvement in the effort to silence Daniels had not previously been reported.
Of course, Trump’s efforts were ultimately futile, as Daniels dribbled out the first lewd details of the night she spent with Trump during a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe back in 2006. Daniels first revealed some of those details in an interview with CBS back and March. Then last month, leaked excerpts from her upcoming book went into intimate detail about the shape of the president’s penis and the trim of his pubic hair – vital information that the public was no doubt eager to learn.
According to WSJ, Trump called Cohen in February and ordered him to seek a restraining order against Daniels via a confidential arbitration proceeding. Shortly beforehand, he and Cohen had learned about Daniels’ plans for an upcoming interview.
Trump ordered Cohen to coordinate the legal response with Eric Trump and another outside lawyer who was not named in the report. Eric Trump then handed off the task of handling the restraining order to a Trump Organization attorney Jill Martin, who was based in California.
But perhaps the most important details from the report is the suggestion that Trump remained involved with the Trump Organization into this year, and that he also may have played a more direct role in the effort to silence Daniels. Even though the involvement was relatively minor, if the report is accurate, this would cut against Trump’s decision to step down from the firm when he took office (though he retains a significant financial stake, and continues to draw income). Previously, Martin had maintained that she was involved in the Daniels affair via her “individual capacity.” Before he turned state’s witness against Trump, Cohen had maintained that he had also acted in his “private capacity.”
Daniels, who was recently let out of her arbitration agreement by Cohen and Trump, had cited Trump’s outside involvement in the arbitration proceeding against her as a reason to have the arbitration case dismissed and the NDA invalidated. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders also denied Trump’s involvement in a statement.
On March 6, Ms. Clifford sued Mr. Trump and Essential Consultants LLC, the company Mr. Cohen used to pay her, in Los Angeles County Superior Court. She asked a judge to invalidate the nondisclosure agreement, saying it was contrary to public policy and unenforceable because Mr. Trump hadn’t signed the document.
The complaint alleged that it “strains credulity to conclude that Mr. Cohen is acting on his own” to enforce the nondisclosure agreement in arbitration “without the express approval and knowledge of his client Mr. Trump.”
At a briefing at the White House the next day, press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked whether Mr. Trump approved the payment to Ms. Clifford. Mr. Trump has “made very well clear that none of these allegations are true,” Ms. Sanders said, adding that the “case has already been won in arbitration and anything beyond that I would refer you to the president’s outside counsel.”
The upshot of all this is that, if Trump helped orchestrate the effort to muzzle Daniels, then it would lend credence to claims made by a third-party watch dog group that Trump helped arrange the NDA. If true, that would be a flagrant violation of campaign finance laws. While public reports have suggested that Mueller is primarily focusing on allegations of obstruction of justice and cooperation with Russia, expect the issue of campaign finance violations to feature more prominently in future reports about Mueller’s probe.
via RSS https://ift.tt/2xUvxv8 Tyler Durden