CONTACT: Jordan Libowitz
202-408-5565 | [email protected]

Washington—The $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election should be investigated as a potential unreported liability on President Trump’s public financial disclosure report, according to a criminal and civil complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) along with its Board Chair Norman Eisen. The complaint, filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of Government Ethics (OGE), asks these offices to investigate whether President Trump knowingly and willfully failed to report this potential liability.

Newly reported information now suggests that President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen or Essential Consultants LLC, a company he set up, made a loan to President Trump for which Cohen expected to be reimbursed after making the payment to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement. If it was a loan, President Trump seemingly violated federal law by failing to disclose it as a liability.

“The more we learn about the Essential Consultants affair, the more it looks like something is missing from the president’s financial disclosures,” Eisen said. “If he failed to disclose this situation, we must ask, what else is he hiding?”

Last week, CREW and Eisen requested that OGE exercise its oversight responsibilities to determine whether President Trump held a beneficial interest in Essential Consultants that should have been reported as an asset on the public financial disclosures.

Click here to read the letter.