--- title: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says Trump Did Not Lie About Payment description: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump did not know he had reimbursed his attorney canonical: https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-03T19:28:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T09:08:36.329Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House: Trump Reimbursed His Lawyer $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Hush Money og:description: "This was information the president didn't know at the time." og:url: https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt148f2f69eb7479cf/69892e524ee262cecf31191e/gettyimages-9310611121.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5760 og:image:height: 3240 og:image:alt: White House Press Secretary Delivers Daily Press Briefing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House: Trump Reimbursed His Lawyer $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Hush Money twitter:description: "This was information the president didn't know at the time." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt148f2f69eb7479cf/69892e524ee262cecf31191e/gettyimages-9310611121.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # White House: Trump Reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Stormy Daniels > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=1ee8999e-8e16-4410-8d0c-d0de4502f52b&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: White House: Trump Reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Stormy Daniels [Watch (HLS stream): White House: Trump Reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Stormy Daniels](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/21TIWvJQ.m3u8) (0:16)  _Published 2018-05-03. A White House spokeswoman said that President Donald Trump did not know as recently as a month ago that he had reimbursed his personal attorney for spending $130,000 to keep a porn star quiet._  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson May 3, 2018 7:28 PM UTC A White House spokeswoman said that President Donald Trump did not know as recently as a month ago that he had reimbursed his personal attorney for spending $130,000 to keep a porn star quiet.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson May 3, 2018 7:28 PM UTC A White House spokeswoman said that President Donald Trump did not know as recently as a month ago that he had reimbursed his personal attorney for spending $130,000 to keep a porn star quiet. Speaking at the daily press briefing Thursday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump “eventually learned” that the money he reimbursed longtime lawyer Michael Cohen for included the payment to Stormy Daniels. But she said that he did not know about the reimbursement from his own pocketbook when he said on Air Force One on April 5 that he did not know anything about the Daniels hush money. When reporters explicitly asked Trump if he knew about the payment, he responded “no, no.” “This was information the president didn’t know at the time and eventually learned,” Sanders told reporters. **Read More:** [_A Short History of Trump’s Changing Story on the Stormy Daniels Payoff_](http://time.com/5264555/donald-trump-statements-stormy-daniels-payoff/) In [a number of interviews](http://time.com/5264311/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-michael-cohen-stormy-daniels-payment/) over the last two days, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has said that Trump [reimbursed Cohen](http://time.com/5263872/giuliani-trump-repaid-cohen-stormy-daniels-payment/) from his personal bank account as much as $470,000 for the Daniels payment and other “incidental expenses” from the campaign, breaking the payments up into monthly installments of $35,000. When pressed on whether that conflicts with Trump’s previous denials, Giuliani has also said that Trump did not know what the reimbursements were for at the time he spoke. “He didn’t know about the payment at the time that it happened,” he [told the _Wall Street Journal_](https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-says-trump-repaid-cohen-for-stormy-daniels-payment-1525315656). “Which makes his statement literally true.” Sanders, who has also denied Trump knew anything about the payments, said she found out about the reimbursement by watching Giuliani’s interview on Fox News Thursday night. ## Transcript [00:00] As Mayor Giuliani stated and I'll refer you back to his [00:04] comments this was information that the president didn't [00:07] know at that time but eventually learned. The president has [00:09] denied and continuously deny the underlying claims and [00:13] again I've given the best information I had at that time ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/"},"headline":"White House: Trump Reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Stormy Daniels","datePublished":"2018-05-03T19:28:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-12T09:08:36.329Z","description":"\"This was information the president didn't know at the time\"","url":"https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/","keywords":["White House","Donald Trump","rudy giuliani","onetime","michael cohen","stormy daniels"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt148f2f69eb7479cf/69892e524ee262cecf31191e/gettyimages-9310611121.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt148f2f69eb7479cf/69892e524ee262cecf31191e/gettyimages-9310611121.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"White House Press Secretary Delivers Daily Press Briefing","caption":"White House Press Secretary Delivers Daily Press Briefing","creditText":"Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/","name":"White House: Trump Reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Stormy Daniels"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"White House: Trump Reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 Without Knowing It Was for Stormy Daniels","description":"A White House spokeswoman said that President Donald Trump did not know as recently as a month ago that he had reimbursed his personal attorney for spending $130,000 to keep a porn star quiet.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/21TIWvJQ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-05-03T21:44:40.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/21TIWvJQ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/","duration":"PT16S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5264898/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-rudy-giuliani-sarah-huckabee-sanders/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```