The following article by Carol D. Leonnig and Michelle Ye Hee Lee was posted on the Washington Post website August 21, 2018:
President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Aug. 21 to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Trump’s real estate company authorized paying $420,000 to lawyer Michael Cohen in his effort to silence women during the presidential campaign and then relied on “sham” invoices from Cohen that concealed the nature of the payments, according to legal filings released Tuesday.
The payments began flowing in February 2017, soon after Trump took office, when Cohen approached Trump Organization executives seeking to be reimbursed for “election-related” expenses, prosecutors said.
That included a $130,000 payment Cohen had made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels so she would remain silent about an alleged affair with Trump, according to the court documents.