'Unbelievable': CNN's Jeffrey Toobin rips Cohen's 'unethical, improper' payout to Daniels

An incredulous Jeffrey Toobin on CNN Friday was stunned by Michale Cohen’s claim he took out a home equity loan to pay off a porn star just before the 2016 presidential election, explaining the claim by Donald Trump’s personal, longtime attorney is “not ethical” and “doesn’t make any sense.”

Cohen defended his use of a Trump Organization email to facilitate a payout to Daniels, who claims she was offered hush money by the president in the lead-up to the election. Cohen has maintained he paid Daniels $130,000 of his own volition, and on Friday explained to ABC he did so using his personal line of credit.

Michael Avenatti, Daniels lawyer, slammed Cohen’s claim on Friday, noting if the longtime Trump aide is to be believed, “he borrowed $130k on his house and pays interest on it in order to give that same $130k (on behalf of a Billionaire) to a woman who according to him was lying.”

CNN’s Toobin agreed the claim “strains credulity”—and has since Cohen first maintained Trump did not know about the Daniels’ payout.

“This whole idea that Mike Cohen has to go into his home equity line—he doesn't have $130,000 lying around—he has to take, in effect, a home equity loan to pay Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet for an affair or relationship that she had with Donald Trump,” Toobin began. “Lawyers don't do that. They don't do that with their own money, it’s not ethical. It's not proper to do that without talking to the client and it also just doesn't make any sense. It is one thing if he was such a billionaire he had $130,000 sit go around.”

“The idea that he goes into a home equity line and then writes the check and just does it out of the goodness of his heart, it’s just unbelievable.”