Court documents released Tuesday allege former President Donald Trump and ex-lawyer Michael Cohen met in the Oval Office several weeks after the inauguration to discuss the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The court documents also allege that Trump tried to delay Daniels because it didn’t matter if her story got out after the 2016 election.
Tuesday’s 16-page indictment of Trump included one additional background of 13 pages that sheds light on the conversations New York prosecutors believe Trump had with Cohen and other allies about the payments.
Trump was indicted in New York Criminal Court on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday’s indictment was unsealed, which found the ex-president charged with 34 counts of first-degree falsification of business records.
The statement of facts stated that between August 2015 and December 2017, Trump had conspired with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him in order to suppress and profit from its publication [Trump’s] electoral prospects.’
Court documents released Tuesday allege former President Donald Trump and ex-lawyer Michael Cohen (pictured) met in the Oval Office several weeks after the inauguration to discuss the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels
Former President Donald Trump is seen in court on Tuesday as he faces 34 counts of first-degree forgery of business documents – charges related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election
According to the court documents, “Attorney A,” known as Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to “an adult film actress,” Daniels, at Trump’s request prior to Election Day.
After the election, Cohen was paid back through a series of monthly checks.
“Each check was processed by the Trump Organization and each check was disguised as a payment for legal services rendered in a particular month of 2017 under a retainer agreement,” the court explained. “The payment records, held and tracked by the Trump Organization, were bogus New York business records. In reality, there was no commission agreement and attorney A was not paid for legal services rendered in 2017.”
“The defendant arranged for his entities’ corporate records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct,” the court document said.
The background information on the indictment also included details of the catch-and-kill programs used by American Media, Inc., the owner of the National Enquirer.
An icy-faced former president, Donald Trump, snapped at reporters and quietly walked into the courtroom after taking fingerprints and processing them at New York Criminal Court on Tuesday afternoon
Cohen was involved in a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels
The company’s former CEO David Pecker was one of the last witnesses to appear before the grand jury before voting to indict.
The court document describes an August 2015 Trump Tower meeting in which Pecker, identified as “AMI CEO,” agreed to act as the “eyes and ears” for the Republican nominee, who was two months into his presidential campaign.
Pecker would help the campaign by watching for negative stories about Trump and warning Cohen about their existence.
One such story – later found to be false – was from a Trump doorman who claimed to know about a secret love child produced by the now ex-president.
According to court documents, Pecker wanted to release the doorman from a $30,000 deal for exclusive rights to his story, but Cohen instructed him not to do so until after the presidential election.
The documents also detail how former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal — referred to as “Woman 1” in the filing — was awarded $150,000 by American Media, Inc. for the exclusive rights to her story of how she had an affair with the married Trump.
According to the indictment, prosecutors had a September 2016 audio recording of Trump and Cohen discussing how to obtain the rights to McDougal’s account and how to reimburse AMI.
In the recording, Trump suggests paying cash and then check, but Cohen ended up creating a shell company called Resolution Consultants, LLC.
A deal to transfer McDougal’s story to Resolution Consultants, LLC. ultimately failed, on the advice of AMI’s lawyer.
The court document then details how the infamous “grab ’em by the p****” Access Hollywood tape was released, which appeared to derail Trump’s presidential bid.
Shortly after its release, AMI Pecker’s editor-in-chief warned that another woman — the porn star Daniels — claimed she dated Trump while he was married.
On October 10, 2016, weeks before the election, Cohen connected with Daniels’ attorney Keith Davidson through AMI’s editor-in-chief and negotiated for Daniels to receive $130,000 for her silence.
Trump instructed Cohen to delay payment to Daniels “as long as possible,” the filing said.
“He instructed Attorney A that if they could defer payment until after the election, then they wouldn’t have to pay at all, because at that point it doesn’t matter if the story becomes public,” the filing reads.
According to the court document, there were texts and emails between Cohen, Davidson and AMI’s editor-in-chief that revealed an attempt to delay the payout of the hush money.
In the end, Trump “agreed to the payout and directed Attorney A to proceed,” and there were discussions between Trump, Cohen, and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
Trump told the two men to figure out how to make the payment since he didn’t want to do it himself.
Cohen agreed to make the payment, with the filing stating that he had confirmed with Trump that he would be reimbursed.
After Trump won the White House, notes Weisselberg took — which prosecutors took — showed how the $130,000 Cohen paid Daniels would be paid back.
The attorney would earn a total of $420,000.
“The CFO of the Trump Organization memorialized these calculations in handwritten notes on the copy of the bank statement that Attorney A provided,” the court documents said.
Trump, Weisselberg and Cohen decided that Cohen would request a monthly retainer of ,000 throughout 2017.
Prosecutors in Manhattan found that Trump and Cohen then met in February 2017 in the Oval Office “and confirmed this repayment arrangement.”
“The checks and slips of false statements were stapled to the invoices that also contained false statements. The defendant personally signed each of the checks and had them returned to the Trump Organization in New York County,” the document said.