Michael Cohen is a "fixer" for President Donald Trump, and the $130,000 he paid to solve the "problem" of Stormy Daniels was "legal extortion," attorney David Schwartz said Thursday on "CBS This Morning."
Schwartz is Cohen's attorney but is not officially representing him in this case, appearing instead as a spokesman for Cohen.
"He's absolutely a fixer, that's what he's been all along," Schwartz said of Cohen. "He's fixed all kinds of problems for Donald Trump over the years."
Schwartz said "Stormy Daniels was a problem" and Cohen did what he had to do to make her go away. While Schwartz told the CBS panel he didn't know if Cohen had fixed other problems like Daniels for the president, he did say it was a "no-brainer" to pay the porn star.
"You guys call it hush money. I call it legal extortion, because this happens every single day that people come around, they're looking for a payout," Schwartz said, adding that it makes perfect sense to pay money to someone even though you did nothing wrong.
"There could be a school of thought that says that's illogical," Schwartz said. "But when you're in business, and when you're a politician … and you're accused of something and you have a decision to make … it's actually a no-brainer to enter into a non-disclosure agreement."
Cohen has "handled all types of items for Mr. Trump that would cause a business problem for the company, and Michael Cohen had great latitude to handle those problems," Schwartz said.
Even to the point of taking out a home equity loan to pay off the porn star Daniels.
"In a vacuum, no. Would I do that? No," said Schwartz when asked if that made any sense.
"It's a different relationship between these two people. It's not a lawyer-client relationship," Schwartz said of Cohen and Trump.
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