Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, negotiated a settlement between a top Republican fundraiser and a former Playboy Playmate who claimed she became pregnant as a result of a consensual relationship, the fundraiser acknowledged in a statement Friday.
Elliott Broidy, who served as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that Cohen had approached him after being contacted by the Playboy model's attorney, Keith Davidson.
"It is unfortunate that this personal matter between two consenting adults is the subject of national discussion just because of Michael Cohen’s involvement," Broidy said, after apologizing to his wife and family.
Cohen arranged a deal in late 2017 to pay $1.6 million to the model, whose name was not disclosed, over two years, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal was the first to report the agreement.
Broidy resigned from the RNC's finance leadership team Friday, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News, and his resignation was accepted by chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Cohen is also a member of the RNC's finance team.
Sources familiar with the agreement tell NBC News that Broidy and Cohen, whose office and home were raided by the FBI last week for details on a $130,000 payment the lawyer made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election, had no previous professional relationship before Cohen called Broidy to offer his services in the context of settling the legal matter with the model.
In addition, the sources said, Cohen constructed the agreement for Broidy in a similar fashion to the deal he arranged for Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with President Donald Trump in 2006.
Broidy's document used the initials "DD" and "PP" to represent the parties involved, just like the Clifford agreement, according to the sources. In Clifford's case, "DD" is Trump, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, says.
The White House and Cohen have denied Clifford's allegations, and Cohen has said he paid Clifford out of his own pocket. Clifford is now suing Trump to get out of the agreement, but at the time it was signed, she was represented by Davidson. Davidson also represented Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says she had a sexual relationship with Trump more than a decade ago, in a deal she cut with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, that bars her from discussing the alleged affair. McDougal, who also has a new lawyer, is suing to void that nondisclosure agreement. Her attorney, Peter Stris, has claimed that Davidson was "colluding" with Cohen and AMI.
The White House and a lawyer for Trump have denied that he had a relationship with McDougal.
