Just one week ago The Wall Street Journal broke a story in which they reported that Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Donald Trump, had arranged to pay an adult-film star named Stormy Daniels (given name: Stephanie Clifford) $130,000 one month before the 2016 election in order to ensure her silence about a consensual affair she had with the now President of the United States in 2006. In a different time this story would have dominated the news cycle for months, if not years. But nestled between stories about the President allegedly using the word “shithole” to describe countries, continuing debates over DACA, and a possible government shutdown, this maybe-scandal took a backseat to some very big stories dominating the news. Now a newly released transcript of a 2011 interview with Daniels by In Touch magazine has the story back at the top of the headline machine.
So let’s break down exactly what we do know.
This isn’t the first time the alleged affair and payment have made news. The WSJ story brought national attention to the alleged affair and payment, though rumors had apparently persisted in certain circles for some time. In the WSJ piece, a White House official says, “These are old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.” Cohen told the paper, “This is now the second time that you are raising outlandish allegations against my client. You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year; a narrative that has been consistently denied by all parties since at least 2011.”
Daniels herself has denied the claims. Cohen gave the WSJ a statement from Daniels in which she denied the relationship and that “rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false.” However, she did not reply directly to WSJ‘s request for comment. In a statement provided to CNN by Cohen, Daniels wrote, “My involvement with Donald Trump was limited to a few public appearances and nothing more. When I met Donald Trump, he was gracious, professional, and a complete gentleman to me and EVERYONE in my presence. Rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false. If indeed I did have a relationship with Donald Trump, trust me, you wouldn’t be reading about in the news, you would be reading about it in my book. But the fact of the matter is, these stories are not true.” CNN also requested her contact information from Cohen, but he would not provide it.
The President himself has not tweeted or made a statement about the matter. As we all know, our current President is not one to remain silent on well…anything. From Russian collusion and the size of nuclear buttons to NFL players and female journalists like Jemele Hill, he’s almost always got something to say. But not this time.
In Touch brought receipts. Today the gossip magazine In Touch has published the full transcript of an interview conducted with Daniels back in 2011, in which she discussed her relationship with Trump in explicit terms. In it she says she first met Trump at a charity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe (a detail also found in the WSJ reporting). She agreed to go to dinner with him, reasoning, “Whether you’re a fan of his or not, which I never really was, you gotta admit he’s pretty fascinating.” Daniels says that they ate dinner in his hotel room alone, with a bodyguard outside and discussed business, including what sorts of royalties she made on her films. When she briefly brought up his wife (Trump had married Melania the previous year), she says he changed the subject quickly.
The dinner then led to sex (without protection), according to Daniels in the In Touch interview. She says, “I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, ‘Please don’t try to pay me.’ And then I remember thinking, ‘But I bet if he did, it would be a lot.’ Afterward, she tells the interviewer that Trump asked her to sign one of her DVDs.
Trump reportedly promised her a spot on The Apprentice. Daniels told In Touch that the now President claimed he had a “wild-card choice…that he could push one person through at will” for his hit NBC show and she would be that person.
Trump allegedly stayed in touch with Daniels after the incident. After the encounter in Tahoe, Daniels told In Touch that Trump began calling her (from a blocked number) and that she could reach him via his bodyguard or personal secretary. According to her, he invited her to events, continued to claim he would get her on his hit show, and that he was also going to get her a condo at a Trump Tower in Tampa. They saw each other occasionally and maintained a sexual relationship. Prior to the 2011 interview, Daniels claims she had not spoken to Trump in about a year and a half.
Fox News may have had the story of this alleged relationship and chosen to bury it. According to CNN, sources familiar with the matter say that a Fox News reporter who often covered celebrity and sexual harassment, Diana Falzone, filed a story about Trump and Daniels in October 2016, but the story never went anywhere. “She had the story, and Fox killed it,” a source told CNN. Fox issued a statement in denial saying, “Like many other outlets, we were working to report the story of Stephanie Clifford’s account in October 2016 about then presidential candidate Donald Trump and a possible payment by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. In doing our due diligence, we were unable to verify all of the facts and publish a story.”
Neither of the parties (or their spokespeople) has commented on the release of the 2011 interview, but we’ll be updating this story as any new details emerge.
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