WASHINGTON—Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the president had repaid his longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment Mr. Cohen made to a former adult film star in October 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter.

Mr. Giuliani, who joined the legal team representing President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation last month, told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday evening that the president had repaid Mr. Cohen, but he suggested that Mr. Cohen made the payment without Mr. Trump’s knowledge at the time.

Mr. Giuliani first disclosed the repayment on Fox News in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, saying the president “didn’t know about the specifics of [the payment] as far as I know.”

“But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this,” Mr. Giuliani added.

Mr. Giuliani’s remarks reversed what appeared to be a long-running effort by Mr. Cohen and the White House to distance Mr. Trump from the payment to Stephanie Clifford, who is known professionally as Stormy Daniels. Mr. Cohen made the payment days before the 2016 presidential election, and Ms. Clifford in exchange signed a nondisclosure agreement. Mr. Trump last month denied knowing about the $130,000 payment and said he didn’t know where the money for the payment had come from. He has denied through representatives of having a sexual encounter with Ms. Clifford.


Mr. Giuliani said in a phone interview Wednesday that Mr. Trump authorized him to announce the reimbursement after the two discussed the matter last week. After Mr. Giuliani addressed the matter on Fox News, he and the president spoke and Mr. Trump said he was “very pleased.” Mr. Giuliani added: “He’s satisfied. We finally got our side of the story.” He said Mr. Trump’s authorization “wasn’t specifically for tonight. It was for when the opportunity presents itself so we’re not burdened by it any further.”

The White House on Wednesday declined a request to comment and referred questions to Mr. Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, another lawyer for the president. Mr. Sekulow didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Cohen didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is investigating Mr. Cohen for bank fraud and possible campaign-finance violations. He has denied wrongdoing. Last month, FBI agents raided properties tied to Mr. Cohen and seized materials including documents related to the payment to Ms. Clifford.


In an interview with the Journal Wednesday, Mr. Giuliani said: “[Trump] paid him back. No campaign finance violations, no crime of any kind. Michael had discretion to solve these.”

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Mr. Giuliani said the reimbursement had occurred in monthly installments of $35,000 to Mr. Cohen throughout 2017, paid out of Mr. Trump’s personal bank account. Mr. Giuliani said he wasn’t aware whether Mr. Cohen had advised the president what he was being reimbursed for. “I would doubt that the president would recall it because it was mixed up in a whole bunch of other things,” he said. “$130,000 would not be an amount that would cry out to you that this was a settlement of some substantial charge.”

Asked whether Mr. Giuliani’s statement that Mr. Trump had repaid his lawyer conflicted with the president’s previous statements that he was unaware of the payment, Mr. Giuliani said: “He didn’t know about the payment at the time that it happened. Which makes his statement literally true.”

In a text message, he added: “Cohen was his lawyer and had discretion to settle, as I have had for clients ultimately paying for it,” Mr. Giuliani said.


“Remember October 2016, hardly will recall any of that in detail. I don’t remember it clearly either,” he said.

Mr. Giuliani didn’t directly respond to a question on whether the president had engaged in a sexual encounter with Ms. Clifford. “Lawyers settle to save reputation of their clients and it happens all the time with” nondisclosure agreements, he said.

Campaign-finance law restricts individuals to giving a maximum of $5,400 to a candidate’s campaign each election cycle. Donors can make contributions of any amount as long as those expenditures aren’t coordinated with the candidate.

The Federal Election Campaign Act defines campaign contributions as “anything of value” intended to influence the election, including “in-kind contributions,” or goods and services provided without charge or at a discount.


The version of events Mr. Giuliani described Wednesday wouldn’t necessarily absolve the president and Mr. Cohen of potential campaign-finance violations. No law limits the amount presidential candidates can spend on their campaign, but if Mr. Trump ultimately paid Ms. Clifford to protect his candidacy, he may have had to disclose it as a campaign expenditure, according to legal experts.

If Mr. Cohen supplied the funds upfront, the move could still count as an in-kind campaign contribution, which would have exceeded the legal limit and would have had to be disclosed. As well, campaign-finance experts said that if Mr. Cohen made the payment with his own money and wasn’t reimbursed, his motive would be central to the legal analysis.

Mr. Trump never signed the nondisclosure agreement, in which he was described by the pseudonym David Dennison, even though he was listed as a party to it and space was allotted for his signature. That left open the possibility that Mr. Cohen executed the agreement without his knowledge.

When the Journal contacted the White House in January requesting comment on the agreement, a White House official said Mr. Trump was unaware of it. White House representatives repeatedly referred questions about the agreement to Mr. Cohen.

In February, Mr. Cohen released a statement in which he said he had used his own money to “facilitate” a payment to Ms. Clifford, drawing on a home equity line of credit tied to his apartment at Trump Park Avenue in New York City. He said at the time that he hadn’t been repaid by the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization, but he has declined to say whether he was ever repaid by Mr. Trump.

The Journal previously reported that Mr. Cohen had been complaining to associates in the months after the payment to Ms. Clifford that he hadn’t been reimbursed, but that he stopped complaining toward the middle of last year.

On Fox News, Mr. Giuliani compared Mr. Cohen paying the ex-adult film star without Mr. Trump’s knowledge to how, in his own law practice, “I take care of things like this for my clients.”

“I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along,” he said. “These are busy people.”

Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com, Michael Rothfeld at michael.rothfeld@wsj.com and Joe Palazzolo at joe.palazzolo@wsj.com