NEW YORK: Nearly 900 pages of documents regarding hush-money payments by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to a porn actress and a Playboy model who said they had sexual encounters with the president were made public on Thursday, providing new insight into an investigation that landed Cohen in prison.
Cohen, 52, pleaded guilty in August 2018 to violating campaign finance law by directing payments of US$130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels and US$150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal to avert a scandal shortly before the 2016 presidential election. A few minutes after that call, Cohen called David Pecker, the president of American Media Inc who was close to Trump, and then received a call from another employee at AMI, which published the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper.
On October 17, Cohen was involved in calls and texts as he feared the attempted settlement agreement might fall apart, according to the warrant application.