Breaking News Emails
In a telephone interview with NBC News late Thursday Rudy Giuliani insisted President Trump only recently found out that he reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement with adult performer Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election.
Giuliani said he shared details of the longterm payment with Trump about a week ago.
“I don't think the president realized he paid him (Cohen) back for that specific thing until we (his legal team) made him aware of the paperwork,” he told NBC News.
Giuliani said the president responded, "‘Oh my goodness, I guess that's what it was for.’”
Giuliani says the president was subsequently on board with the decision to go public with the reimbursement. "You're not going to see daylight between the president and me," he said. "We're going to work hard to have a consistent strategy."
Breaking News Emails
When asked how many payments Trump had made, Giuliani told NBC News the president started paying Cohen back in January, 2017 and that altogether there were “about 12 installments of $35,000 each.”
The money, totaling an estimated $420,000, also covered other expenses and fees for Cohen, Giuliani said, but he was unable to provide details.
The payment raised eyebrows because neither Cohen's original outlay to Daniels, who has claimed she had sex with Trump and was paid to be quiet, nor Trump's repayment were reported to the Federal Elections Commission as contributions to a campaign that could have benefited from the performer's silence.
But Giuliani argues the payment had nothing to do with the campaign: Trump has a reported history of executing non-disclosure agreements with large sums attached. In March a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, alleged in court documents that she was paid $150,000 through a straw entity to keep silent about a 10-month affair with Trump.
“If there was no campaign, Cohen would have made the same payment in the same amount to prevent personal embarrassment and heartache to his wife," Giuliani told NBC News.
The former New York mayor and ex-U.S. attorney who joined Trump's outside-the-White House legal team last month caused a sensation Wednesday night when he said on Fox News' "Hannity" that the president indeed reimbursed Cohen for paying Daniels.
Previously, Trump denied covering the cost of the agreement. Cohen said he took a home equity credit line to cover the payment to Daniels.
Though Giuliani denied that his remarks amounted to an admission that the payment was a campaign contribution, he did tell Sean Hannity it would have been politically problematic for news of the deal to break in the month before the election.
On Thursday, Giuliani repeated that candidate Trump wasn’t aware of the payment in October 2016 and said, “Cohen thought he was doing it to help alleviate a personal problem.”
In April investigators armed with search warrants raided Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home as part of an investigation into his business dealings by the U.S. attorney in New York. Focus has turned to Cohen's close relationship with the president and what he knows about Trump's relationship with Russia.
When asked if part of Trump's legal strategy was to make sure Cohen doesn’t flip on the president, Giuliani responded, “No I don't think he's going to flip. There is nothing for him to flip over.”