Michael Cohen: YOU HAD ONE JOB! But Now, Stormy Thinks She Can Tell Her Story

Actress believes Cohen disclosure invalidates her NDA.

Stormy Daniels

Michael Cohen, by his own admission, paid Stormy Daniels $130,000. He won’t say what it was for. Everybody knows it was to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual tryst that took place between Donald Trump and the porn actress in 2006, while Trump was married to his third and current wife, Melania.

While Cohen now would have us believe that Trump didn’t know anything about the payment and didn’t reimburse his lawyer for the $130,000 he… gifted(?)… to a pornstar for no reason, it seems likely that the only reason to pay Daniels money was to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement about the Trump affair. As Trump’s lawyer, it was Cohen’s JOB to keep Stormy quiet.

Cohen released his statement to the New York Times to perform another solid for his client: to get him off the hook of a potential Federal Elections Commission violation for misusing campaign funds. Remember, this was exactly the kind of thing that got John Edwards indicted. He used campaign funds to pay off his mistress, and he got caught. By accepting sole responsibility for the payment, Cohen probably thought he was helping Trump out.

But, to paraphrase Yoda: Now, things are worse. From Talking Points Memo:

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, believes that Trump attorney Michael Cohen invalidated a non-disclosure agreement after two news stories were published Tuesday: One, in which Cohen told The New York Times that he made the six-figure payment with his personal funds, and another in the Daily Beast, which reported that Cohen was shopping a book proposal that would touch on Daniels’ story, said the manager, Gina Rodriguez.

“Everything is off now, and Stormy is going to tell her story,” Rodriguez said.

And now his failure is complete.

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This is quickly devolving into one of the worst examples of lawyering in history. Consider:

* If Cohen did make this payment, it’s a likely violation of ethics rules that could get him disbarred.
* Merely by talking about the payments, he’s perhaps fatally wounded the non-disclosure agreement — which is why he paid her in the first place.
* If Cohen is lying and he did make the payment under orders from Donald Trump, with money he got or would get from Trump, he probably mentioned that to… Stormy Daniels.
* Who can now talk.
* To the FEC if she wants to.

All to cover up an alleged affair Trump’s “Christian” supporters already don’t care about so long as Trump keeps up his white supremacist policies.

It’s hard to put into words how bad of a job Cohen has done here. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are better at carrying out royal conspiracies than Cohen is at serving his liege. William Westmoreland had a better exit strategy from Vietnam than Cohen has an exit strategy for this. Ron Jeremy is better at quietly having sex with porn actresses than Cohen is at keeping porn actresses quiet.

This is a total disaster.

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Stormy Daniels ‘Going To Tell Her Story’ Because Trump Atty ‘Invalidated’ NDA [Talking Points Memo]


Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.