The Amount Of Money Donald Trump Allegedly Paid Stormy Daniels Is No Grand Sum

Since 2016, the former president of the United States and reality TV star Donald Trump has been at the center of multiple controversies. From being impeached twice to allegedly inciting an insurrection, Trump's presidency has sparked an array of shocking moments. But, one scandal has  Trump facing serious legal issues — his affair with former adult film star Stormy Daniels, who's real name is Stephanie Clifford. Before the 2016 presidential election, reports of Trump's questionable behavior toward women began to circulate, including a resurfaced video of him on Access Hollywood making vulgar sexual remarks.

Things got even murkier for Trump after The Wall Street Journal aired his affair with Daniels and the subsequent "hush money" he gave her to keep quiet. Following the exposé, Daniels sat down with Anderson Cooper for "60 Minutes" and gave jaw-dropping details about their entanglement, and a 2011 incident in which she was threatened not to come forward about it.

"A guy walked up on me and said to me, 'Leave Trump alone. Forget this story,'" she recalled. Before the scary incident took place, Daniels was in talks to share her story with InTouch. "Then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful little girl. It would be a shame if something happened to her mom.'" After years of legal battles. Trump was finally indicted for paying Daniels hush money on March 30. Here's everything we know about that questionable payment. 

Back in 2018, multiple reports revealed that the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about their 2006 affair. According to The Wall Street Journal, the hush money payoff was conducted in October 2016, a week before the controversial election. In response to the report, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen slammed the allegations in a statement to the publication. "This is now the second time that you are raising outlandish allegations against my client," he said. "You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year." A month later, Cohen admitted to making the payment, but refuted the claims that he was reimbursed, which ended up being proven as a lie. "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment," he told CBS News in 2018

While Daniels initially accepted the $130,000 payment, she later offered to pay it back so she could speak freely about their aforementioned affair. "This has never been about the money. It has always been about Ms. Clifford being allowed to tell the truth," Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti said in a 2018 statement to NBC News. "The American people should be permitted to judge for themselves who is shooting straight with them and who is misleading them. Our offer seeks to allow this to happen."

When it comes to hush money and affairs, Stormy Daniels isn't the only person that Donald Trump has allegedly tried to silence with money. Back in 2016, former Playboy model Karen McDougal was paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer for a story about her affair with the former president. However, in a shocking turn of events, the tell-all feature was never released to the public. The move, which is known as a "catch and kill," was later revealed as a ploy to stop any interference with Trump's presidential campaign. In an admission from the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc. (AMI), the company's chief executive David Pecker offered to help filter out "negative stories" about Trump in 2015, according to The Washington Post.

"At the meeting, Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate's relationships with women, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided," federal prosecutors revealed in AMI's 2018 non-prosecution agreement. While the issue was seemingly resolved in 2018, law officials found a new interest in the case ahead of Trump's recent indictment. According to multiple reports, Manhattan prosecutors used McDougal's aforementioned payment history during the grand jury investigation of "The Apprentice" star. While documents of Trump's indictment remained sealed from the public eye, CNN revealed that "at least one witness" was asked about the model's $150,000 payment.