Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says he paid Stormy Daniels with his home-equity line

Fredreka Schouten | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Attorney used Trump org. email while organizing Daniels 'hush money' President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen reportedly used his Trump Organization email while arranging the transfer of $130,000 in “hush money” to Stormy Daniels. Nathan Rousseau Smith has more.

WASHINGTON — President Trump's longtime lawyer said Friday he used his home-equity line of credit to arrange a $130,000 payment to a porn star who claims she had an affair with Trump.

"The funds were taken from my home-equity line and transferred internally to my LLC account in the same bank," Michael Cohen told ABC News, as scrutiny intensified over the October 2016 payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels.

He also sought to dismiss allegations that his use of a Trump Organization email address to arrange the payment to Daniels signaled that Trump was aware of the transaction.

"I sent emails from the Trump Org email address to my family, friends as well as Trump business emails," he told the network. "I basically used it for everything."

In a statement earlier this year, Cohen said that neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization was party to the agreement to pay off Daniels or reimbursed him for the payment. His statement was silent on whether Trump personally reimbursed him.

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Neither Cohen nor his lawyer Lawrence Rosen immediately responded to requests for more information.

Cohen's explanation is the latest twist in the saga over the payment to Daniels, just days before the presidential election as the campaign grappled with a wave of sexual misconduct accusations against then-candidate Trump.

Trump's team has denied the affair.

Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti said on CNN that "it's absolutely laughable" that Trump was not aware of attempts by Cohen to pay Daniels.

Later, on Twitter, he questioned Cohen's assertion about relying on a home-equity line to come up with the money.

"So let me get this straight ," he wrote. "Cohen now claims he borrowed $130k on his house and pays interest on it in order to give that same $130k (on behalf of a Billionaire) to a woman who according to him was lying."

On Tuesday, Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit against Trump saying a "hush" agreement she signed with Cohen was invalid because Trump never signed it.

Daniels has sought to tell her story publicly, and Cohen last week won a temporary restraining order against the actress through a secret arbitration process.

Daniels said she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. On Friday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to answer reporters' questions about Daniels.