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You are here: Home / Trump Legacy / Trump Indictment Involves Three Hush Money Deals

Trump Indictment Involves Three Hush Money Deals

April 4, 2023 at 4:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “One of them involved the National Enquirer, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, paying $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to know that Mr. Trump fathered a child out of wedlock.”

“The tabloid made another payment to Karen McDougal, Playboy’s playmate of the year in 1998, who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the National Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it, a practice known as ‘catch and kill.'”

“The final payoff, which is the focus of the indictment, involved a $130,000 deal between Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, and a porn star in the final days of the campaign. The payment, which Mr. Cohen said he made at Mr. Trump’s direction, ensured the porn star, Stormy Daniels, would not go public with her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump.”

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About Political Wire

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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