Federal prosecutors said in court filings last year that Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, orchestrated payments to Daniels and another woman, Karen McDougal, “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump. The documents unsealed Thursday offer the first clear account of the extent of Trump’s involvement in that effort, which came at a particularly sensitive moment weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

… U.S. District Judge William Pauley ordered the government to make public some of the search warrants it used when investigating Cohen, saying the campaign finance violations discussed in the records “are a matter of national importance.”

…Trump denied knowledge of the payments after they became public. But the FBI told a judge it had obtained telephone records showing he participated in some of the first conversations about the scheme, which prosecutors have said violated federal campaign finance laws.

…The timeline of communications began on Oct. 8, 2016, the day after the Washington Post published the infamous Access Hollywood video in which Trump can be heard talking in vulgar terms about women. Around this time, Daniels was planning to talk to Good Morning America and Slate about her alleged relationship with Trump in 2006, the same year that his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son.

Hope Hicks, then press secretary of the Trump campaign, called Cohen that evening. Trump joined the call briefly. Hicks, Cohen and Trump continued to talk that night, while Cohen was also in communications with David Pecker and Dylan Howard, heads of American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, to buy rights to the story about the affair and keep it from becoming public, a tactic known as catch and kill.

…Cohen confirmed the agreement with the National Enquirer publishers. On Oct. 27, $130,000 was wired to Davidson.

…The Enquirer’s parent company later acknowledged in an agreement with prosecutors that [it acted] because McDougal’s story could have jeopardized Trump’s campaign.

Cohen arranged a separate payment to Daniels. …Trump’s business then reimbursed Cohen for his payment to Daniels, added another $130,000 to pay for Cohen’s taxes and another $60,000 as a bonus. Prosecutors said the payments were disguised as legal bills.

Cohen said during a congressional testimony in February that his former boss masterminded the “cover-up” of the payments to Daniels and directed him to lie about them.

FBI tied Donald Trump to Michael Cohen’s hush-money payments

hmmm