President Trump: Cohen payments to women weren't illegal because they 'came from me'

Erin Kelly | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump says hush money 'not a campaign violation' President Donald Trump is defending the hush money payments made by his former attorney Michael Cohen to a pair of women, insisting, contrary to Cohen's guilty plea, that the effort wasn't "even a campaign violation." (Aug. 22)

President Donald Trump told the Fox News Channel that Michael Cohen's payments to two women who alleged affairs with Trump were not illegal because they "came from me" and not his campaign.

"They weren’t taken out of campaign finance, that’s the big thing," Trump said during an interview on FOX & Friends that will air Thursday morning. "That’s a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn’t come out of the campaign; they came from me."

Cohen, who is Trump's former attorney and personal fixer, told a federal court on Tuesday that he had paid off two women to silence them before the 2016 election at Trump’s "direction," and admitted that the payments were illegal.

But Trump told Fox that the payments weren't a campaign violation since they came from his personal funds.

"In fact, my first question when I heard about it was did they come out of the campaign because that could be a little dicey," Trump said. "And they didn’t come out of the campaign and that’s big. But they weren’t – that’s not a – it’s not even a campaign violation."

Trump said he didn't know about the payments until after Cohen made them. Asked by interviewer Ainsley Earhardt if he knew about them, Trump responded: "Later on I knew. Later on."

That contradicts Cohen's statement to the court that he had acted at Trump's direction when Trump was a candidate for president in 2016. It also contradicts audio tapes secretly recorded by Cohen that allegedly reveal Cohen and Trump talking about purchasing the rights to the story of a former Playboy model who alleges she had an affair with Trump.

Trump has made contradictory statements about the payments in the past.

More: Trump suggests people not hire Michael Cohen

More: Did Michael Cohen lie to Congress?

In April, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that he knew nothing about $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. In May, the president changed his story, acknowledging the payment to Daniels but saying that a non-disclosure agreement was "used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair."

"These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth," Trump tweeted on May 3.

In the Fox interview, Trump also invoked an alleged campaign violation by former President Barack Obama.

President Donald Trump: 'Find some collusion' Speaking at a rally in West Virginia hours after back-to-back legal blows in cases stemming from Robert Mueller's investigation, President Donald Trump insisted his campaign did not collude with Russia.

"If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign violation but he had a different attorney general and they viewed it a lot differently," Trump said.

Trump is apparently referring to a civil violation by the Obama campaign, as opposed to the criminal violations that Cohen pleaded guilty to committing.

In 2008, Obama's campaign paid a whopping $375,000 fine for failing to report certain campaign contributions within 48 hours as required by federal election law.



