Wall Street Journal Concludes Trump Was Behind 'Hush Money' Payments

Donald Trump

The Wall Street Journal, a conservative newspaper I will point out, has issued its report on the hush money payments by Donald Trump to former Playmate Susan McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels.

The report itself is behind the newspaper's firewall, but CNBC has the receipts:

President Donald Trump was involved in “nearly every step” of hush-money agreements with multiple women who claimed they had sexual affairs before he became president, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The newspaper, citing dozens of interviews and document, also reported that Trump may have violated federal campaign-finance laws through his participation in the deals. Trump has denied knowing about a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star and director who alleges she had sex with Trump in 2006.

The Journal reported that Trump, as a presidential candidate, “directed deals in phone calls and meetings” related to the women with Cohen. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which prosecuted Cohen, has reportedly also collected evidence of Trump’s involvement in the agreements.

Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, took to Twitter to make sure folks knew about the reporting.

This further confirms what we have been saying and alleging for months. There can be no question now as to the validity of our allegations. I look forward to the apologies directed at my honest and heroic client @StormyDaniels.https://t.co/2WsR37wbag

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) November 9, 2018

If you aren't a subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, you can watch the video report below as the WSJ team breaks down the information and series of events they have uncovered.

Again - this is a conservative-leaning news paper. The WSJ is no 'liberal' anything. Watch below.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

Michael Cohen Recorded Trump 'Hush Money' Conversation

Former 'fixer' for Donald Trump - Michael Cohen

From The New York Times:

President Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Mr. Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording.

The F.B.I. seized the recording this year during a raid on Mr. Cohen’s office. The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Cohen’s involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws, and any conversation with Mr. Trump about those payments would be of keen interest to them.

The recording’s existence further draws Mr. Trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret. And it highlights the potential legal and political danger that Mr. Cohen represents to Mr. Trump.

Once the keeper of many of Mr. Trump’s secrets, Mr. Cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors.

You'll recall the White House ferociously denied that Donald Trump knew ANYTHING about the payments to Karen McDougal, who says she began a nearly yearlong affair with the Trumpster in 2006, shortly after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron.

According to CNN's Dana Bash and Gloria Borger, Trump is privately livid about the revelation:

Via @DanaBashCNN @GloriaBorger: When informed about the tape, the president said, “I can’t believe Michael would do this with me,” according to a source familiar with the tapes.

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 20, 2018

From Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti:

And there is a reason why I used the term that I did and demanded the release of the #TrumpTapes as opposed to the #TrumpTape. If Michael Cohen is a patriot, then ALL of the tapes should be released to the American people. Now. Too much is at stake. #Basta

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 20, 2018

National Enquirer Paid Trump Doorman To Stay Silent On Rumored Affair With Employee

Donald Trump

More news on the Trump "silencing" front as multiple sources are now reporting that a former doorman for Trump World Tower was apparently paid $30,000 in the late 80s to stay quiet about rumors that Donald Trump had a relationship with a former housekeeper.

The rumors, first reported by Ronan Farrow for The New Yorker, allege the relationship produced a child.

Late in 2015, a former Trump Tower doorman named Dino Sajudin met with a reporter from American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.

A few weeks earlier, Sajudin had signed a contract with A.M.I., agreeing to become a source and to accept thirty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to information he had been told: that Donald Trump, who had launched his Presidential campaign five months earlier, may have fathered a child with a former employee in the late nineteen-eighties.

Sajudin declined to comment for this story. However, six current and former A.M.I. employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared legal retaliation by the company, said that Sajudin had told A.M.I. the names of the alleged mistress and child.

The New Yorker says it has no evidence that Trump fathered a child by the woman.

The payment to Sajudin would mark the third payment meant to silence embarrassing information about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, taking into account allegations from former Playboy model Karen McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels.

Sajudin says he passed a lie detector test regarding the rumors at the time of the transaction claiming high-level Trump employees, including Trump’s head of security, Matthew Calamari, had shared the story with him.

A.M.I. acknowledged the payment to Sajudin through company-owned sister website Radar Online today.

As the reports have dominated much of today's news, Sajudin issued a statement to CNN today which read:

“Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement I had with AMI [The National Enquirer] with regard to a story about President Trump had been leaked to the press. I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower, I was instructed not to criticize President Trump’s former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child.”

While sources at A.M.I. say they didn't have much confidence in the allegations, they found it unusual that the company would write a $30,000 check for a "catch and kill" story.

Once source told The New Yorker, “It’s unheard of to give a guy who calls A.M.I.’s tip line big bucks for information he is passing on secondhand. We didn’t pay thousands of dollars for non-stories, let alone tens of thousands. It was a highly curious and questionable situation.”

All of this is of interest when viewed through the lens of the recent raid of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's office where FBI agents searched and seized info pertaining to "hush money" payments.

Not so much about the payoff itself by A.M.I., but the attempt to coverup the story in order to help Trump during the election.