Trump discussed how to keep Stormy Daniels silent in series of calls with top staff, FBI agents say

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Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks reportedly held a series of phone calls during the 2016 presidential election discussing how to keep adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, from going public with her story of an alleged affair.

The calls were revealed on Thursday morning after a year-old unredacted search warrant application for Cohen was released to the public following the close of his federal case.

The FBI said the calls also included David Pecker and Dylan Howard, both executives from American Media, Inc. Three days after one of those calls, Stormy Daniels signed a hush money agreement that would keep her from revealing her alleged affair with Mr Trump until after he secured the Oval Office.

“Based on the timing of these calls, and the content of the text messages and emails, I believe that at least some of these communications concerned the need to prevent Clifford from going public, particularly in the wake of the Access Hollywood story,” the FBI agents wrote, referring to the controversial leaked Access Hollywood tapes that feature Mr Trump openly discussing groping women without consent.

Though FBI agents do not know the substance of the phone calls between Cohen and Mr Trump, there were back-to-back calls on 26 October, the same time the president’s self-titled “fixer” was creating a bank account to transfer $130,000 (£104,108) to the adult film actress.

The nearly 270-page unredacted warrant application also includes salacious details about Mr Trump’s reactions to news of his alleged affairs going public. For example, when the Wall Street Journal published it’s story in November 2016 about former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged affair with the president, Cohen sent a text message reading “He’s pissed” to Mr Howard, who “attempted to reassure Cohen about the effect of the forthcoming Wall Street Journal article, texting, ‘I think it’ll be okay pal. I think it’ll fade into the distance.”

“I’m pissed!” The AMI executive continued. “You’re pissed. Pecker is pissed. Keith is pissed. Not much we can do.”

FBI agents said in the warrants they believe “he” in Cohen’s messages referred to Mr Trump.

A previously redacted section alleged the president was directly involved in coordinating the efforts to keep Stormy Daniels silent.

However, the judge partially agreed to a government letter this week asking for certain identities to remain secret. It remains unclear who the document refers to in certain redactions, and other instances where “certain individuals” is listed in footnotes.

The US Attorney’s Office obtained records that allowed FBI agents to identify Mr Trump’s participation on one particular phone call the night of 8 October with Ms Hicks. Meanwhile, Cohen called AMI executives and other members of Mr Trump’s staff throughout the day, totalling eight calls, including an eight minute conversation with the president himself.

Ms Daniels received the hush money by 27 October. Cohen and Mr Trump then spoke the following morning, according to the documents.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.