Report: Michael Cohen, Trump Spoke Day Stormy Daniels Deal Inked

CHATSWORTH, Calif.–Despite Donald Trump’s denials that he had any knowledge of the $130,000 payoff made to Stormy Daniels by his own personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen, new reporting by The Daily Beast online magazine shows that Cohen and Trump appear to have been in direct communication on October 28, 2016—the same day that the “hush money” deal was signed and finalized by Cohen and Daniels.

The apparent communication between Cohen and Trump also took place on the next day after Cohen wired the $130,000 payoff to Daniels. Cohen has claimed that he made that payment from his own personal funds, drawing on a home equity credit line. But according to reporting last month by The Wall Street Journal, Cohen expected Trump to pay him back for the payment, and has been upset that the reimbursement never came.

While the apparent Trump-Cohen communication on that day, just over a week prior to the 2016 presidential election, does not necessarily confirm that Cohen informed Trump of the Daniels payoff, it appears to significantly raise the probability that the “fixer” told his boss that the situation with Daniels was “fixed” that very day.

Sources who told the Journal that they had knowledge of Cohen’s activities said that Cohen “could not reach Mr. Trump” at that time, with the presidential campaign racing toward what would become its dramatic and shocking conclusion.

But The Daily Beast scoured Cohen’s Twitter timeline from that period, and found tweets in which Cohen stated he was in communication with Trump on the day the deal was signed—or possibly on the day that Cohen wired Daniels the “hush money.”

On October 27, the day that Cohen wired the $130,000 payment to Daniels, a viral video online spread quickly, allegedly showing a homeless woman in Los Angeles who had been physically attacked while defending Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star from vandals, supposedly “(Hillary) Clinton supporters.”

Cohen took an immediate interest in the video, and posted a message on his Twitter account saying that Trump himself had instructed him to locate the homeless woman. But if Cohen was being truthful in saying that his instructions came from Trump, the communication could have taken place only on October 27—when The Hollywood Reporter posted the video—or the following day when Cohen posted his tweet.

Cohen later tweeted on October 28 that Trump had “a gift” for the homeless woman.

Cohen has not publicly stated whether or not he told Trump about the payment, but even before Trump denied on April 5 that he knew Cohen had paid Daniels, Cohen’s own lawyer, David Schwartz, in a televised interview in late March, flatly denied that Cohen told Trump about the “hush money” deal. The newly unearthed Cohen tweets appear to cast serious doubts on those claims, possibly connecting Trump directly to the Daniels payoff.

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