The Daily Mail obtained a 2018 letter from Michael Cohen’s lawyer to the Federal Elections Commission that shows Cohen used his personal funds to pay Porn Star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
The letter also stated that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was involved in the transaction and did not reimburse Cohen for the payment, either directly or indirectly.
This directly contradicts convicted perjurer Michael Cohen’s testimony.
On Monday, Michael Cohen’s former legal advisor Robert Costello appeared before the Manhattan grand jury to set the record straight.
Costello blasted Michael Cohen as a “convicted perjurer” in remarks to reporters in New York.
Costello said the prosecutors “cherry-picked” 6 emails out of more than 300.
From The Daily Mail:
After canceling today’s [Wednesday’s] session, the grand jury has been asked to return at noon Thursday, when prosecutors ‘may present one more witness,’ a court official told DailyMail.com.
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony to Congress given a year later.
Cohen said under oath that Trump ‘asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair,’ and that ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.’
But in a February 8, 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan wrote: ‘Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds’, and that ‘Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.’
The letter was written in response to an FEC probe launched after complaints of campaign finance violations, lodged by Paul Ryan and the organization Common Cause.
‘In a private transaction in 2016, before the U.S. presidential election, Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford,’ Cohen’s lawyer, who worked at McDermott Will & Emery, wrote.
‘Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.
