Michael Cohen Is a Busy Man

Michael Cohen negotiated a $1.6 million payment to a former Playboy model on behalf of a Republican fundraiser in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The payment to the unnamed model came after Republican National Committee Deputy Finance Chairman Elliot Broidy impregnated the woman. Broidy told the Journal that he had a “consensual relationship” with the model. “At the end of our relationship, this woman shared with me that she was pregnant. She alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy and I offered to help her financially during this difficult period,” Broidy said in a statement to the newspaper.

According to the terms of the deal, the woman cannot disclose details of her relationship with Broidy (her lawyer declined to confirm the existence of the agreement).

If not for the FBI’s recent raid of Cohen’s house and hotel room, the arrangement he brokered between Broidy and the Playboy model would likely be a small-time scandal, a clichéd story of a rich and powerful married man. But the Journal notes that the nondisclosure agreement written for Broidy is particularly interesting because it bears a striking resemblance to the 2017 agreement where Cohen agreed to pay $130,000 to Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford). According to the terms of that deal, Daniels was also prevented from speaking publicly about the relationship she says she had with Donald Trump in 2006.

The Journal reports:

The Broidy agreement uses the same pseudonyms for Mr. Broidy and the woman with whom he was allegedly involved—David Dennison and Peggy Peterson—as the earlier agreement used for Mr. Trump and Ms. Clifford, respectively, the person familiar with the matter said. Both agreements had separate side letters that listed the real names of the parties, this person said.

It is unclear what, if any, impact the Journal’s reporting will have on the FBI’s ongoing investigation of Cohen’s role in facilitating payments to women who have alleged affairs with Trump. But it certainly reads like a hackneyed political thriller where the villain is toppled by his overblown sense of indestructibility.