If Donald Trump thought that he could become U.S. president and avoid any consequences for his past actions, he was wrong. Lately, his past affairs have been coming back to haunt his time in the White House.
This week, past Trump attorney Michael Cohen released a tape of a pre-election conversation he had with Trump about possible payment to cover the story of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says that she had an affair with the president. Now, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti claims that there’s more where that came from. (Daniels is another woman who says she had an affair with Trump. Cohen paid her $130,000 to keep quiet.)
Avenatti wrote on Twitter:
‘Breaking: Donald Trump conspired with Michael Cohen to pay off multiple other women prior to Election Day in 2016. They were also concerned about a pregnancy. Cohen has evidence and info in his possession and it must be released to the public. Now!’
Avenatti replied to a commenter on his above tweet that yes, he had received new evidence backing up his claim.
In the past, he has claimed other, not-yet-named women to have approached him claiming to have been paid off to keep quiet about affairs with Trump. He has said that their stories were still being vetted — but now, at least some of that vetting is perhaps over.
Avenatti’s claim that Trump and Cohen were concerned about an unwanted pregnancy adds a new element to the mix. Cohen has already been documented to have dealt with an unwanted pregnancy for another one of his very few clients, former Republican National Committee official Elliot Broidy. He helped negotiate a deal for Broidy to pay $1.6 million to cover the affair and subsequent abortion — although that money didn’t come all at once and Broidy has since stopped payments, sparking a lawsuit from Shera Bechard, the woman he was involved with.
Trump has already been plagued by recent reporting about a possible secret child. Former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin says that American Media, Inc. — the parent company of the National Enquirer — paid him $30,000 to keep quiet about an alleged secret Trump child from the 1980s.
That story may be what Avenatti now has evidence Trump and Cohen were “concerned about.” AMI had also purchased Karen McDougal’s story, and on the aforementioned tape, the president and his former personal attorney discussed buying that up. They could have been interested in Sajudin’s story as well, despite public dismissals from the Trump team.
Cohen currently faces a criminal investigation into possible bank and campaign finance fraud thanks in large part to his activities with Trump. That investigation was revealed after the government raided Cohen’s home, office, and hotel room earlier this year. Any payments beyond the completed one to Daniels could open up both Cohen and the president to further legal vulnerability. The former Trump lawyer has distanced himself from the president as time has gone on, sparking speculation that he may turn and cooperate with prosecutors at some point in the future.
Check out Twitter’s response to Avenatti’s Thursday revelation below.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
