President Donald Trump seems to have been personally involved in efforts to silence Stormy Daniels.
In February, Trump directed his then-attorney Michael Cohen and son Eric to coordinate an effort to block Daniels from going public with her alleged relationship with the president, reports The Wall Street Journal.
After finding out that Daniels was planning to give an interview to the media despite a 2016 nondisclosure agreement, Trump reportedly instructed Cohen to seek a restraining order against her through a confidential arbitration proceeding.
Trump then directed Cohen to coordinate the legal response with Eric Trump and an outside lawyer, Lawrence Rosen, who had represented Trump and the Trump Organization. The latter two reportedly enlisted a Trump Organization attorney in California to sign off on the arbitration paperwork.
While Cohen’s payment of $130,000 in hush money to Daniels was revealed in January, this is the first time that Trump has been directly implicated. The WSJ reports that Trump told Cohen in a phone call to “enforce the contract in arbitration and indicated he would pay legal costs.”
“I’ll take care of everything,” Trump reportedly said.
Trump has denied the affair with Daniels, but has admitted to reimbursing Cohen for the hush payment. Daniels, for her part, is suing both Trump and Cohen, claiming that the nondisclosure agreement was invalid and unenforceable as Trump hadn’t signed it.