The checks to Mr. Cohen were sent on a more or less monthly basis throughout 2017, Mr. Trump’s first year in office. Mr. Cohen provided two checks to the House committee last week and his lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, provided the additional six checks to The Times this week. Mr. Cohen’s team said it was searching for three others.
Of the eight checks now available, seven were for $35,000 and another was for $70,000 to cover two months’ worth of payments. Six were signed by Mr. Trump himself while he was president and the other two were signed by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.
Altogether, Mr. Trump or his trust paid Mr. Cohen $420,000, according to federal prosecutors. Of that, $130,000 was to reimburse payments made shortly before the 2016 election to Ms. Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, so she would not tell her story. Another $50,000 was for Mr. Cohen’s effort to manipulate online polls to inflate Mr. Trump’s reputation as a businessman.
That $180,000 was then “grossed up” with another $180,000 to offset taxes that Mr. Cohen would have to pay on the original money since it was being treated as income. Another $60,000 was added as a “bonus,” prosecutors have said.
On May 23, the president signed a personal check on the same day he was overseas meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Jerusalem and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem, before flying that night to Rome.
After the Oct. 18 check came one on Nov. 21, just two days before Thanksgiving when Mr. Trump pardoned a turkey, saying, “I feel so good about myself,” and then defended Roy S. Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama who had been accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. Mr. Trump also spoke by telephone that day with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
The last check made public was signed on Dec. 5, the same day that Mr. Trump called Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Abbas and Arab leaders to tell them that he had decided to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem.
NYT Haberman 3.6.2019 #4