Rudy Giuliani says Trump paid Michael Cohen back for $130,000 given to Stormy Daniels

William Cummings | USA TODAY

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Contradicting President Trump, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that the president repaid his personal attorney Michael Cohen for $130,000 given to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she claims to have had with Trump.

Giuliani, who recently joined Trump's legal team, made the statement during an appearance on the Fox News show Hannity.

Giuliani told host Sean Hannity that the payment to Daniels was "going to turn out to be perfectly legal" because “that money was not campaign money.”

The money was "funneled through a law firm and then the president repaid it," Giuliani added.

On April 5, Trump denied knowing about the $130,000 payment to Daniels and told reporters aboard Air Force One that he didn't know where the hush money came from.

"You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael," Trump said at the time.

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Giuliani told Hannity that although "everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning," he wasn't worried.

"I knew how much money Donald Trump put into that campaign," Giuliani said, adding that $130,000 was just a "couple checks" within that vast sum.

When he heard Cohen had a retainer of $35,000, "when he was doing no work for the president," Giuliani said he concluded that was how Cohen was being paid for handling the Daniels matter. "With a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes," he said.

"Do you know the president didn't know about this?" Hannity asked referring to past denials from Trump and Cohen.

"He didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as I know," Giuliani said. "But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people."

Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti called Giuliani's statement "a stunning revelation."

"Mr. Trump evidently has participated in a felony and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people," Avenatti told the Associated Press.

"I am absolutely speechless," Avenatti told MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell. He said Americans should be outraged by Giuliani's admission. "I don't care whether you're on the left, or on the right or in the center. I don't care what your party affiliation is, you deserve to be told the truth by your president."

Avenatti said Giuliani confirmed that Trump and his team have been lying about the agreement with Daniels.

"This is consistent with what we have been saying now for months," Avenatti said. "It ultimately was going to be proven, it ultimately was going to come out, we just didn't know that Rudy Giuliani was going to go on the Sean Hannity show and admit it on national television."

Daniels claims she had sex with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife Melania gave birth to their son, Barron. Trump has denied the affair.

The porn actress filed a lawsuit against the president Monday, saying Trump defamed her when he dismissed her claim that she was threatened to stay quiet about the tryst as a "con job."

Daniels is also suing Cohen, but a federal judge granted a 90-day delay in that lawsuit last week due to concerns that Cohen likely faces a criminal indictment after FBI agents raided his home, hotel room and law offices as part of a criminal fraud investigation.

Giuliani joined Trump's legal team, which has been remade in recent weeks, with the goal of negotiating a possible interview of Trump by Robert Mueller and to help bring the special counsel's investigation into Russian election interference to an end.

The former New York mayor spent most of his appearance on Hannity attacking Mueller's probe, which he called "a totally garbage investigation" and a "witch hunt."

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