Wall Street Journal: Trump Lawyer Created LLC And Used Pseudonym To Funnel $130K Payoff To Porn Star

The Stormy Daniels story gets even stormier:

President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen reportedly used a private company and a pseudonym to get money to an adult film star who allegedly had an affair with the president in 2006. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Cohen used Essential Consultants LLC, to send a lawyer representing the actress who calls herself Stormy Daniels $130,000 as part of a non-disclosure agreement concerning her relationships with Trump, who has been married to first lady Melania Trump since 2005. Cohen represented the Trump Organization at the time.

From Mediaite:

While the LLC was used to mask the source of the payment since Delaware doesn’t require companies to publicly disclose names of managers, and Daniels was identified as “Peggy Peterson” in the agreement, Cohen listed himself as an “authorized person” on the company’s formation documents. Yes, that’s right. Instead of having another lawyer or party handle that task, Cohen just placed his name on that line. While Cohen has provided a statement signed by “Stormy Daniels” claiming that Clifford didn’t have a past sexual relationship with Trump, it’s been reported that numerous outlets had stories in the works prior to the election regarding the encounter.

The WSJ story is behind their paywall.

This is great: Michael Cohen *could’ve* shielded his identity on the formation documents for the LLC he set up to preserve anonymity for the Stormy Daniels payment.

Instead, he listed himself as an “authorized person.” https://t.co/DGlbPg4BFZ pic.twitter.com/EiBrjDinhk

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) January 18, 2018