{"id":1903627,"date":"2023-03-23T08:10:45","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T12:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bombshell-2018-letter-undermines-michael-cohens-claims-in-trump-case-report\/"},"modified":"2023-03-23T09:37:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T13:37:07","slug":"bombshell-2018-letter-undermines-michael-cohens-claims-in-trump-case-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bombshell-2018-letter-undermines-michael-cohens-claims-in-trump-case-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Bombshell 2018 Letter Undermines Michael Cohen\u2019s Claims In Trump Case: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbombshell-2018-letter-undermines-michael-cohens-claims-in-trump-case-report%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1903627&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A letter that was written five years ago has emerged and appears to contradict Michael Cohen\u2019s claims about a hush money payment made during the 2016 presidential election, according to a report. The letter, which was dated February 8, 2018, was sent by Stephen M. Ryan, Cohen\u2019s attorney at that time, to the Federal Election Commission. In the letter, Cohen\u2019s lawyer stated that Cohen had used his own personal funds to make a $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford, a porn actress also known as Stormy Daniels. The letter went on to say that neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization was involved in the transaction or reimbursed Cohen for the payment. However, Cohen later pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations related to the payment. Cohen, who has faced disbarment, has since testified that he made the payments under Trump\u2019s instruction.<\/p>\n<p>Although the letter was not presented to the grand jury, it could still reportedly influence whether the Manhattan District Attorney will decide to seek an indictment, given Cohen\u2019s credibility issues.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Robert Costello, who once advised Cohen, reportedly criticized Cohen\u2019s credibility in court this week claiming that he had information that contradicted some of Cohen\u2019s current statements and that could be favorable to Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors argue that the alleged $130,000 payment was an illegal donation to the Trump campaign because it was used to stop a story from coming out that could have hurt his campaign outcomes. The problem for Trump is related to how his company reimbursed Cohen, which was listed as a legal expense; however, there was no retainer agreement with Cohen and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from him. This could mean that there is a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records if proven as prosecutors say that the checks were signed personally by Trump while he was serving as president. Furthermore, prosecutors could elevate this misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump\u2019s \u201c\u2018intent to defraud\u2019 included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As per the New York Post and The New York Times, Cohen received $420,000 from Trump or his trust; this included $130,000 for the payment, $50,000 for digital work that Cohen did for Trump, which was allegedly doubled to offset taxes, and $60,000 as a \u201cbonus\u201d part. While non-disclosure agreements are legal, this could still cause problems for Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A five-year-old letter surfaced Wednesday that appeared to show\u00a0President Trump\u2019s former fixer\u00a0Michael Cohen\u00a0lied to investigators about a hush money payment made during the 2016 presidential election. The letter, dated February 8, 2018, was written by Cohen\u2019s attorney Stephen M. Ryan to the Federal Election Commission about the payment Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels.\u00a0In<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":1903628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Bombshell 2018 Letter Undermines Michael Cohen\u2019s Claims In Trump Case: Report","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[4476,6473,5375,4856,22153,4509,5177,3819,3634,5355],"class_list":["post-1903627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-4476","tag-bombshell","tag-case","tag-claims","tag-cohens","tag-letter","tag-michael","tag-report","tag-trump","tag-undermines"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Bombshell 2018 Letter Undermines Michael Cohen\u2019s Claims In Trump Case: Report","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1903627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1903628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1903627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1903627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1903627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}