Payment to Porn Star by Trump Lawyer Raises Storm

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer has told a leading daily from  New York that he paid $130,000 of his own money to a porn star who once said she had an affair with Trump. The attorney, Michael Cohen, said that he was not reimbursed for the payment to the actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and goes by Stormy Daniels, the daily has reported.

Cohen told the daily that the payment was legal, and he declined to give details such as why he made it. “Neither the Trump Organisation nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Cohen is reported to have said. “The payment to Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.” US media reports have said the payment was made one month before the 2016 election to keep the liaison quiet.

Trump was a private citizen when the 2006 sexual encounter with Clifford allegedly took place.Trump was married at the time and his wife, Melania, had given birth to their son less than four months earlier.

The payment was first reported last month by the Wall Street Journal.

Trump, through his lawyers, and Clifford, 38, have both denied anything ever went on between them.

However another magazine published a 2011 interview with Daniels last month in which she expounds at length and in detail on their relationship and what she described as their “textbook generic” sex.