Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani says that President Donald Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election.
Mr Giuliani made the statement during an appearance on Fox News, where he discussed the controversial 2016 payment of $130,000 to Daniels, allegedly to cover up an affair between her and Mr Trump in 2006.
“He didn’t know about the specifics of it but he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this,” Mr Giuliani said.
Mr Trump and the White House have repeatedly said that the affair never happened — and Mr Trump himself said last month that he did not know the payment was being made. Mr Cohen, whose offices and hotel room were recently raided by federal officials, has said that he made the payment with his own money.
The US Attorney’s office in Manhattan later indicated that they raided Mr Cohen’s properties following months of investigation.
“It’s going to turn out to be perfectly legal; that money was not campaign money,” Mr Giuliani said.
“Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know,” he continued, before stating that the payment was “funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.”
Michael Avenatti, Daniels' attorney, quickly took to Twitter to say that the American people had been lied to about the payment.
Mr Giuliani recently joined Mr Trump’s legal team, and is tasked with helping to determine the approach to dealing with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Since joining the legal team, the former New York City Mayor has outlined restrictions before Mr Trump will agree to be interviewed by Mr Mueller and his team. Those restrictions include keeping the interview to just a few hours, and keeping the line of questioning to a narrow set of questions.
