In a world of many questions, the question of the hour is why President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid a porn star named Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election. This is very puzzling any way you look at it.
The reason given is that it was to keep her from speaking about a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, which he denies ever happened. Let me get this straight: It is a matter of the lawyer saying to young Ms. Daniels, you must not reveal the thing that never happened because it would hurt my client’s electoral prospects, er, I mean feelings. Here’s $130,000.
Well, I wish some lawyer would give me $130,000 to keep quiet about something that never happened. Hey, mum’s the word, as far as I am concerned. I’d take a secret like that to the grave for $130,000. In fact, I am open to negotiation — $130,000, $100,000 or $56.43. Lawyers of America, let’s make a deal.
The problem I suppose is that I am not sexy enough to be worth paying to keep quiet about nothing that happened. I recognize that I don’t really have the body for porno work. I considered it for a while and then decided to go into editorial writing, which requires a person to take compromising positions without actually getting naked.
If I spilled someone’s secret about something that never happened, lawyers would not even bother to offer paying me anything for nothing.
Of course I would threaten them. I would say: I will give salacious details about the affair that never happened unless I’m paid. Yawn, they would say. Come back when you have a sexy name. Reg is not working for us.
OK, OK, I am Hurricane Henry now. Better, they would say, but you are still not “60 Minutes” material. This is the difference between Stormy Daniels and myself; she replaced her old name, Stephanie Clifford, with one that put her in the forecast for success: periods of nudity with scandal in the higher elevations.
Still, call me old-fashioned, but back in the day people were paid hush money for things that actually happened. What has scandal come to? Paying someone for doing nothing amounts to socialism, surely a worse sin than adultery. It’s also too easy.
Of course, it was not so easy keeping quiet that Ms. Daniels could actually do it. She felt the need to speak out about the encounter that Mr. Trump says never happened, which we can all agree is ingrate behavior and most disturbing. After all, if you can’t trust porn stars, whom can you trust?
I just wonder about the motivations of both parties. In the best possible construction, the affair that never happened reveals Mr. Trump’s kind heart and generous nature. He knew how challenging it is to be a porn star, as the actors are at great risk of catching cold when they have no clothes on and have no place to carry a handkerchief.
So, Mr. Trump could have said to his lawyer, give that fine young lass Stormy $130,000 out of your own money as a contribution to the arts. It would be better spent going to sweet and innocent Little Nellie and her dog, but that dog irritates me.
As for Ms. Daniels’ motivation, it could be political, but she didn’t come off as being partisan in the “60 Minutes” interview with Anderson Cooper. She said it wasn’t OK being made out to be a liar — a bit of a problem given that she was contradicting her earlier position that nothing happened, the one worth $130,000. And she said she had been threatened in 2011 by some unknown man who wanted her to keep quiet. Interesting, if true, as they say.
So much ado about nothing. Or is it? A distinctly Clintonian air hangs about this alleged nothingness, more devious and suspicious than Bill Clinton’s famous line about “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” That was something.
If I weren’t such a fair-minded person, I would think 130,000 reasons exist to believe Stormy Daniels’ retelling of the story about the emperor having no clothes. But those bucks aren’t stopping anywhere. To the emperor’s loyalists, with their finely tuned morality, a scandal is nothing unless a Democrat does it.
Reg Henry: rhenry@post-gazette.com
First Published: March 28, 2018, 1:52 p.m.
