A top Democrat is taking aim at a curious discrepancy between Trump's financial disclosure and what Michael Cohen and federal prosecutors laid out in his plea deal
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Donald Trump.
A top Democrat is taking aim at a discrepancy in President Donald Trump's most recent financial disclosure, requesting a trove of documents from the White House and the Trump Organization related to the reimbursement of the president's former lawyer's hush payments to women.
In the letter, Cummings zeroes in on a discrepancy:
But in information made public by federal prosecutors last month after Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts of federal crimes, prosecutors said Cohen was reimbursed for $420,000 by Trump's business for his expenses.
According to the court filings, Cohen submitted an invoice in January 2017 requesting $180,000 - which included $130,000 for the payment he facilitated to Daniels and $50,000 for "tech services." Prosecutors said Trump Organization officials listed in the filings inflated that total to $420,000, which would be paid to Cohen in installments of $35,000, a monthly retainer fee throughout 2017.The company accounted for those monthly payments as legal expenses, according to the court filing."In truth and in fact, there was no such retainer agreement, and the monthly invoices Cohen submitted were not in connection with any legal services he had provided in 2017," prosecutors wrote.
Cummings highlighted that discrepancy between Trump's financial disclosure and what was presented by prosecutors in their filing. The Democratic lawmaker asked why Trump hasn't amended his financial disclosure, since the reimbursement revealed by Cohen and the Justice Department totaled much more than $250,000.
By not doing so, Cummings said Trump is failing to comply with the law."These payments include a number of increases, bonuses, and anomalies that raise even more questions about the nature and scope of the services President Trump obtained from Mr. Cohen," Cummings wrote.
Cummings asked multiple questions in addition to why the payment wasn't listed as greater than $250,000 and why the disclosure has yet to be amended. Those questions included why didn't Trump report a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal as a liability, and whether Trump or the Trump Organization made any other similar payments that have yet to be disclosed.
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