Trump Tower doorman was paid $30,000 to keep a secret on how the president allegedly fathered a child with the housekeeper
President Trump's one-and-a-half-odd years in office has been punctuated with controversy after controversy with no perceivable end in sight. The latest reports suggest that a former doorman was paid $30,000 for a story about how the billionaire mogul allegedly fathered a child with a former housekeeper in the late 1980s. According to a report in the New Yorker, she was an employee at the Trump World Tower in Manhattan.
Following multiple outlets reporting on the unsubstantiated story, the doorman, identified as Dino Sajudin, has released a statement through his lawyers at Held & Hines confirming that he had an agreement with publisher American Media Inc. The publisher owns Radar Online and the National Enquirer, the latter of which had paid for the story but did not run it.
Sajudin's statement read: "Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that I had with AMI (The National Enquirer) with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press. I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower I was instructed not to criticize President Trump's former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child."
The rumor came to light this past Wednesday, even though the payment for the information was made to Sajudin in late 2015, raising questions on whether the publisher did not run the story because it would be damaging to Trump's presidential campaign. Radar Online, an A.M.I. publication then posted a story acknowledging the thirty-thousand-dollar payment but saying that the former doorman’s story was false.
The fact that AMI is led by Trump confidante and friend David Pecker only served to deepen suspicions. This would not be the first time that such a thing had happened either. Most recently, former Playboy model Karen McDougal sued AMI in a bid to void her own $150,000 exclusivity deal so she could go public about her affair with the president.
While many hope this would be yet another nail in Trump's coffin, the Associated Press said that the woman in question has vehemently denied the rumors of having an affair with the president. She also said she was unaware of AMI paying Sajudin for the tip and pursuing the non-story, stating 'This is all fake' and that she thought the publisher lost its money.
CNBC reported the comments of AMI's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, who was defensive about the entire ordeal. A statement released by Howard read: "It is a disconcerting view of the level of hysteria and partisanship in American politics that not reporting a story that multiple media outlets have now also confirmed to be untrue has become headline news."
He continued: "Paying for information has long been a practice of The National Enquirer and to suggest that it has only paid for, and not run, stories about any particular person is absurd," adding: "The fact that no other news organization has subsequently been able to validate the story after AMI released the subject from his exclusivity clause confirms the basis for our editorial decision."
In its statement, AMI also denied that Trump or his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, played a part in the story not seeing the light of day and called the claims 'reckless, unsubstantiated, and false.': "AMI categorically denies that Donald Trump or Michael Cohen had anything to do with its decision not to pursue a story about a 'love child' that it determined was not credible."
"The suggestion that David Pecker has ever used company funds to 'shut down' this or any investigation is not true. In addition, AMI and Mr. Pecker emphatically deny any suggestion that there might have been ... any 'partnership' created which might influence any business ties in regard to AMI."