Here's the deal as I understand it from reports from varying sources:
Stormy and Cohen were having an affair for several years and Stormy wanted Cohen to introduce her to Trump. She had an idea of her and other porn stars competing on Trump's Apprentice show.
Cohen managed to get her at an event that Trump was at so that she could broach the subject. She got a photo with Trump along with hundreds of other people.
When Trump did not hire her to be on his show, she and Cohen came up with the extortion plan.
Cohen took out a home Equity loan to pay a 'hush money' payment to Stormy, but didn't want his wife to know what his scheme was, that's why he didn't take it out of the general family checking and savings.
He drew up a NDA for Stormy to sign (which she did) but nowhere on the paperwork does it mention the person she had the alleged affair with, which would allow the NDA to work for either Cohen or Trump or someone else.
Cohen was receiving $35k per month on retainer for Trump to take care of whatever legal help he needed. He went ahead and gave himself a $60k bonus without telling Trump.
Cohen tells Trump that Stormy is threatening to derail his campaign with false rumors. Trump says to take care of this/fix this problem. Cohen did.
good synopsis. pretty much what I thought it was with a couple more details, like the home equity and him not telling his wife. I also was unaware of the failure of mentioning Trump directly in the nda.
So if he paid her to keep quiet about an incident that never occurred, is it still illegal?
Here's the deal as I understand it from reports from varying sources:
good synopsis. pretty much what I thought it was with a couple more details, like the home equity and him not telling his wife. I also was unaware of the failure of mentioning Trump directly in the nda.
Nope. Destroys the entire case.