- The Manhattan DA alleged that Donald Trump and Michael Cohen met in the White House to discuss his repayments.
- The pair allegedly met to confirm a repayment agreement that would reimburse Cohen for his $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.
Then-President Donald Trump and Michael Cohen met in the White House Oval Office to discuss how the lawyer would be reimbursed after he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000, according to a statement of facts released by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump was formally arraigned in Manhattan on Tuesday related to an investigation into hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election. Trump is the first president to ever face criminal charges. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.
According to the document, released on Tuesday, the Chief Financial Officer for the Trump Organization agreed to repay Cohen, referred to as "Lawyer A," agreed to repay Cohen $420,000 in installments of $35,000 over 12 months.
Trump and Cohen then met in the Oval Office at some point in February 2017 to confirm this payment arrangement, the DA said in the documents. The documents do not specify whether or not Trump knew about what he was reimbursing Cohen for.
"Each month, Lawyer A was to send an invoice to the Defendant through Trump Organization employees, falsely requesting payment of $35,000 for legal services rendered in a given month of 2017 pursuant to a retainer agreement," the statement of facts reads. "At no point did Lawyer A have a retainer agreement with the Defendant or the Trump Organization."
The $420,000 amount would cover the $130,000 payment to Daniels and another reimbursement fee of $50,000, according to the DA. The amount was then doubled to $360,000 by the Trump Organization CFO to "characterize the payment as income on his tax returns" and the CFO also added an additional $60,000 as a supplemental year-end bonus," the DA said in the statement of facts.