Imagine that

A lawyer for President Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Michael Cohen, who spent nearly a decade as a top attorney at the Trump Organization, arranged payment to the woman, Stephanie Clifford, in October 2016 after her lawyer negotiated the nondisclosure agreement with Mr. Cohen.

  WSJ

What did he want her to pee on?

A group of fans attempted to recruit Daniels to run against Republican Senator David Vitter in Louisiana in 2010.[8] The recruitment process was centered around the website DraftStormy.com.[19] On May 21, 2009, she formed an exploratory committee.[20] Daniels was unaffiliated with any party until April, 2010 when she declared herself as a Republican.[21] She made several listening tours around Louisiana to focus on the economy, as well as women in business and child protection[22] and stated that if elected, she would likely retire from the adult industry.[23] On July 28, 2009, it was reported that her campaign manager had been targeted by a car bomb attack.[24] She announced on April 15, 2010 that she would not be running for Senate, saying she could not afford a run for the Senate seat and stating that the media never took her candidacy seriously.

  Wikipedia

Maybe she should have held out for more money to run a 2018 campaign.

Clifford has privately alleged to sources interviewed by the Journal that she and Trump had a consensual sexual encounter in 2006, the year after he and Melania Trump were married. A White House official declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal about the payment, but said that the allegations of the interaction between Trump and Clifford were “old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.”

Cohen, the attorney, said Trump "vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.”

  The Hill

So why pay hush money?

UPDATE 1/13:



At first blush, that seems logical, but if the money went into her lawyer's trust account, I think he could more easily "lose" it in his account books or tax filings and pay her in cash so she didn't have to declare it.  I'm thinking she's denying it because that was part of the deal, or maybe she's blackmailing Trump for more money.  At any rate, it's not like the story was broken by The Enquirer.  This came from the Wall Street Journal, and I have to believe they double-sourced and fact-checked.

UPDATE:

The NYT corroborates:

The reported payment came shortly before the presidential election and as the actress, Stephanie Clifford, 38, was discussing sharing her account with ABC’s “Good Morning America” and the online magazine Slate.

[...]

Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, said on Friday that in a series of interviews with Ms. Clifford in August and October 2016, she told him she had an affair with Mr. Trump after meeting him at a 2006 celebrity golf tournament. She told him that Michael D. Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, had agreed during the presidential campaign to pay her the $130,000 if she kept the relationship secret, Mr. Weisberg said, adding that Ms. Clifford had told him she was tempted to go public because the lawyer was late in making the payment and she feared he might back out of their agreement.

  NYT

Aha. And she had good reason to think that might happen.

In a text message exchange that Mr. Weisberg provided to The Times, he pressed her on details of the agreement.

“Was the Trump lawyer Michael Cohen?” he asked.

“Yep!” responded Ms. Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels.

[...]

According to the draft, Ms. Clifford was referred to as “Peggy Peterson” and was represented by a lawyer named Keith Davidson. On the other end of the negotiations were other parties referred to as “David Dennison” and “David Delucia.” Ms. Clifford promised to send Mr. Weisberg the original paperwork. But shortly after the text message exchange, Ms. Clifford stopped responding. Mr. Weisberg said that his conversations with the actress were on the record but that he was not prepared to write the story without her consent.

And, oh, lord.  The Daily Beast has a story, too.  Take it or leave it.

Dear God, anybody got any brain bleach?

The Daily Beast had also been in protracted talks with Daniels about arranging an interview after three sources—including fellow porn star Alana Evans—told The Daily Beast that Daniels and Trump were involved. She ultimately backed out on Nov. 3, just five days before the 2016 election.

[...]

Daniels’ story would have come on the heels of the porn star Jessica Drake coming forward in late October 2016 to accuse Trump of kissing her without consent and offering her $10,000 in exchange for sex in 2006. Then, on Nov. 4, 2016, the Journal unearthed documents revealing that the Trump-friendly rag National Enquirer had shelled out $150,000 to Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal for a tell-all about her alleged 10-month affair with The Donald from 2006 to 2007. They never ran the piece.

You know what? I don't think it would have mattered. Male Trump supporters would simply be jealous, and female supporters would simply think the women were lying.

According to fellow porn star Alana Evans—who was not only Daniels’ neighbor and close friend at the time, but also happened to be staying in the area—Daniels confided in her that she and Trump were more than just friends.

[...]

“Stormy said she met Donald Trump and then tells me about the golf tournament and how she’s supposed to hang out with him later that night, and she invited me. Stormy said Donald knew exactly who she was and wanted to meet her.”

Later that evening after returning to her hotel room, Evans said Daniels kept calling, asking her to come join the party. But Evans wasn’t interested and made up reasons not to go.

[...]

“Stormy calls me four or five times, by the last two phone calls she’s with Donald [Trump] and I can hear him, and he’s talking through the phone to me saying, ‘Oh come on Alana, let’s have some fun! Let’s have some fun! Come to the party, we’re waiting for you.’ And I was like, ‘OMG it’s Donald Trump!’ Men like him scare me because they have so much power and this was way before his presidential nomination. So I bailed on them and turned my phone off.”

[...]

Evans said she talked to Daniels the next day, apologized for bailing, and asked her how the night went. “She tells me, ‘All I’m going to say is: I ended up with Donald in his hotel room. Picture him chasing me around his hotel room in his tighty-whities.’ I was like, ‘Oh I really didn’t need to hear that!’ Then she said he offered her keys to his condos in Florida, and I was like, ‘Wow guess you had a good night,’ and that was the last we ever spoke of it.”

[...]

The Daniels-Trump relationship was also confirmed by an additional source that works closely with Daniels, who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity, as well as by a third source in the adult industry.

But they weren't there, were they? So, according to Trump's attorneys, it didn't happen.