President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, used his Trump Organization email address while negotiating and arranging a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, according to NBC News.
An email provided to NBC News by Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, showed Cohen corresponded with First Republic Bank about the payment using his Trump Organization email address and not his personal email account.
Last month, Cohen said in a statement that he made the payment to Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — out of his own pocket.
“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Cohen said.
{mosads}The email obtained by NBC News, dated Oct. 26, 2017, appears to have been sent to Cohen by an assistant to First Republic Bank’s senior managing director, Gary Farro. The email contained a message that “the funds have been deposited into your checking account.”
NBC reports the email did not make mention of where the money came from or where it was transferred to, nor did it specifically detail the amount of the transaction.
Avenatti told the news outlet that the email “suggests” the money may have come from a Trump Organization bank account because Cohen was using his Trump email account for correspondence related to the payment. He also called on Cohen to release other emails related to the transaction.
“Mr. Cohen should immediately provide the prior emails [between him and the bank] to show exactly where the money came from,” Avenatti told NBC News.
A source familiar with the matter also told NBC that Cohen used his Trump Organization email address to negotiate with Daniels prior to her signing a nondisclosure agreement.
The report comes after Daniels filed a lawsuit against Trump in an effort to void a nondisclosure agreement between the two that she signed before the 2016 election.
Daniels claims in her suit that the nondisclosure agreement, which prevents her from discussing an alleged intimate relationship with Trump in 2006, is not valid because Trump never signed it.
Cohen admitted last month that he paid Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 as part of the agreement that ensured she wouldn’t speak about the alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
He has reportedly tried to silence Daniels by obtaining a temporary restraining order against her from a private investigator, according to NBC News.