International
Trump prioritized silence of Stormy Daniels “for the campaign, not for Melania,” according to his former lawyer
Donald Trump’s former lawyer and former right-hander, Michael Cohen, assured on Monday that the former American president, accused of falsifying accounting documents to buy the silence of the porn actress Stormy Daniels, acted in this way to protect his 2016 electoral campaign, and not so much his marriage to Melania.
“I want it to be hidden until the elections are passed (2016). If I win, it will not be relevant because I will already be president; if I lose, I won’t even care,” Cohen paraphrased Trump, adding that “it was for the campaign, not for Melania” Trump.
Some statements that provoked the first ostensible gestures of denial with the head by the former president during this Monday’s session in the New York court, where he has even remained prolonged moments with his eyes closed.
“I didn’t even think about Melania. It was all for the campaign,” Cohen repeated.
Melania and Donald Trump met in 1998, when he was 52 years old and she was 28, and the couple arrived at the altar in 2005, just a year before the alleged slip with Daniels; an ‘affair’ that, if proven, took place when she was pregnant.
In addition, Barron, the only son resulting from the marriage between Trump and Melania, was born on March 20, 2006 and grew up in the attic of the Trump Tower, where, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, the agreements of the former head of the American Executive were forged to hide this mess of skirts and another with Karen McDougal, a Playboy model.
Cohen, in the same way, revealed on Monday in the criminal trial that the former president faces in New York how he insisted that “not come to light” alleged extramarital relationships that could have affected his 2016 campaign.
“The purpose was to prevent the story from being sold or marketed to an external source,” Cohen explained after explaining how his role in intermediation with the American tabloid The National Enquirer was.
According to his account, Cohen was in charge of executing Trump’s requests for the aforementioned media, led by media tycoon David Pecker, to exercise the tactic known in English as ‘catch and kill to acquire the publishing rights of these alleged ‘affaires’, but finally leave them stored in a drawer and never see the light.
Trump is accused of forging accounting documents to buy the silence of the porn actress Stormy Daniels and thus safeguard her reputation in the face of the 2016 elections, in which she would eventually end up imposing.
The scheme, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, consisted of Cohen advancing the payment of $130,000 to Daniels so that his alleged relationship was not revealed, which then had to be reimbursed to the former lawyer, as part of a plot that served to “corrupt” the aforementioned elections.
Another of the women’s names highlighted in the case is that of Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who also tried to filter an affair with Trump and for whose silence Cohen contacted Pecker.
First, I “asked” Trump “if he knew who he was,” Cohen recalled to questions from the Prosecutor’s Office, to which the former president allegedly replied: “She is very beautiful.”
“I told him ‘okay’, but right now he’s trying to sell a (love) story,” Cohen recalled.
“Make sure it doesn’t come to light,” Trump would answer, according to Cohen assuming that “history had to be acquired” by applying the ‘catch and kill’ technique.
“What he told us (Pecker) was that he could be attentive to anything negative about Mr. Trump and that he could help us know in advance what was going to come out and try to prevent it from coming out,” Cohen said, who detailed that the media executive ended up being paid $150,000 to silence the story.
On the other hand, Cohen added that they were also aware of the publication of negative stories about Trump’s rivals in The National Enquirer and set the example with one about Hillary Clinton: “Hillary Clinton appeared with very thick glasses, among some accusations that she had a brain injury.”
In addition, Cohen said that Trump was “enchanted” with the role of this tabloid because his great competitive advantage was that it was present in most “cash registers of supermarkets and grocery stores,” suggesting that it reached a large part of society.
Cohen also narrated how he forged his relationship with Trump in the early 2000s to be part of his close circle by making important transactions or resorting to invoices that he considered “unfair.”
“I felt like I was at the top of the world when (Trump) said that I was fantastic or great,” Cohen said.
Trump made all the requests, according to Cohen, in person because the former head of the US Executive “never” had a personal email address.
“Part” of the work that he entrusted to him was, according to his story, also to mediate and even “enable” those who signed articles with some kind of criticism of the former president.
“If there was an article that bothered him, I was also in charge of talking (with journalists),” he explained about his work, which he summed up in eminently “making happy” the presumptuous candidate of the Republican Party in the U.S. presidential elections in November.
Become one of Trump’s main enemies today, Cohen had already declared against his former chief during the civil trial for fraud that was held in New York where he blamed him for fictitiously inflating his assets to obtain better credit conditions. That process resulted in a fine of 364 million dollars that the tycoon is appealing.
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
First woman elected president in the Americas, Violeta Chamorro, dead at 95
Nicaraguan exile coalition urges Costa Rica to receive U.S. deportees fleeing Ortega regime
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Extension of the state of emergency approved in southern Chile
-
International5 days agoDefense Secretary: National Guard deployment aims to preempt unrest nationwide
-
Central America5 days agoPanama begins reverse migration by sea for 109 stranded migrants
-
International4 days agoOne survivor confirmed after Air India flight crashes with 242 on board
-
International5 days agoMexico apologizes to Guatemala for police incursion after armed clash
-
International4 days agoShark attacks child in Florida
-
International5 days agoMiguel Uribe remains critical but shows progress following assassination attempt
-
International4 days agoOver 200 dead after London-Bound plane crashes in India
-
International5 days agoProposed U.S. tax threatens Mexico’s record remittance inflows
-
International4 days agoUncle Sam used in DHS poster calling for public to report immigrants
-
International3 days agoICE under fire for detaining undocumented teen from Florida foster care
-
International4 days agoAt least five others involved in attack on Miguel Uribe Turbay
-
International4 days agoHegseth dodges lawmakers’ questions on potential U.S. invasion plans for Greenland, Panama
-
International5 days agoMexico sees 13.5% increase in international tourists in April 2025
-
International2 days agoChina shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
-
International4 days agoArgentine government says Cristina Fernández sentence was fair and free of political influence
-
International5 days agoNoboa extends emergency rule—but prisons and mining hub excluded by court
-
International3 days agoIsrael warns of retaliation after iranian missiles hit civilian areas
-
International4 days agoEight Killed in Gaza as Hamas allegedly attacks Israel-Backed aid group
-
International2 days agoTrump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
-
International2 days agoRight and far right leaders aspire to win the next elections in Latin America
-
International2 days agoDonald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
-
International5 days agoCuban and chinese officials agree to expand cooperation amid official visit
-
International3 days agoCalifornia sues Trump over deployment of military forces in immigration arrests
-
International2 days agoMore than 2,000 protests in the US will condemn Donald Trump’s “authoritarianism” this Saturday
-
International2 days agoCriticism of ICE in Florida for arresting a minor from Honduras and taking him away from a foster family
-
Central America10 hours agoNicaraguan exile coalition urges Costa Rica to receive U.S. deportees fleeing Ortega regime
-
Central America10 hours agoFirst woman elected president in the Americas, Violeta Chamorro, dead at 95