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Attorney Michael Avenatti hints $1.6 million abortion payout was for Trump — not GOP donor

The lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels suggested that a $1.6 million hush money payoff to a Playboy model was actually made on behalf of President Donald Trump — and not a Republican donor.

Attorney Michael Avenatti appeared Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he gave a wide-ranging interview on the lawsuit against the president and a related criminal investigation of Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen — and he said reporting on the case had missed an important detail.

“So, Mika, you are familiar with the fact that a week ago, Judge (Kimba) Wood ordered Michael Cohen’s attorneys to disclose all of his clients for the last three years,” Avenatti said, “and there were three clients listed — three clients listed. Do you recall which three?”

Brzezinski listed Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and Republican donor Elliott Broidy — but Avenatti said she was making the same mistake everyone else had.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Mr. Trump, the Trump organization and Sean Hannity. Mr. Broidy was not disclosed in open court as one of Michael Cohen’s clients.”

Co-host Joe Scarborough asked the attorney what that meant.

“I think at some point we are going to find out, if in fact, the client in connection with the ($1.6 million) settlement was, in fact, Mr. Broidy. I’m going to leave it at that.”

Avenatti wouldn’t say it, but the implication seems clear.

Cohen negotiated a $1.6 million hush money payment to a Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair and then had an abortion.

News reports had identified Broidy as the client who agreed to pay the woman in installments over two years if she agreed to remain silent about the relationship — but Avenatti said Cohen’s lawyers ruled him out in open court.

That would leave Trump, or possibly Hannity, as the likely clients who arranged the payment.

Broidy resigned earlier this month as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after the payments were reported.

Dual wrote:What is illegal about that?

Harry Ola wrote:

Dual wrote:What is illegal about that?

The payment itself could be illegal if related to campaign finance, but I think an abortion on the President's record might be a step too far even for his most fevered Evangelical supporters.

Dual wrote:What is illegal about that?

• Everybody is eligible for the plan, but they can opt to keep their existing plan instead.
• All those without insurance are auto-enrolled when they turn up to get medical care; children are auto-enrolled at birth.
• Incomes below 150% of the poverty level shall pay no premiums, anyone above that pays a sliding scale premium capped at 10% of income.
• Deductibles, co-payments, and out-of-pocket costs will also vary by income.
• Employers can choose to shift to a Medicaid Extra plan.

The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general.

“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

The previously undisclosed details about Ms. Veselnitskaya rekindle questions about who she was representing when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the campaign. The meeting, one focus of the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference, was organized after an intermediary promised that Ms. Veselnitskaya would deliver documents that would incriminate Mrs. Clinton.

Ms. Veselnitskaya had long insisted that she met the president’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman in a private capacity, not as a representative of the Russian government.

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