Political | Process

In the letter, Cohen said he “used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford.”

As part of his guilty plea, Cohen admitted that he used a newly incorporated shell company to pay Daniels, then sought reimbursement from the Trump Organization for the full amount, plus a $35 wire fee and another $50,000 for tech work related to Trump’s campaign.

Cohen also later pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of lying to Congress when he denied trying to broker a deal for a Trump Tower development in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In December 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison by a judge who blasted his “veritable smorgasbord of illegal conduct” and acidly noted that “as a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better.”

Former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman said the 2018 letter could help Trump’s defense if he’s prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over the Daniels payment.

“I think it’s just going to open the door to additional questions of his credibility and give more opportunity for further cross-examination — as though they didn’t have enough,” Rendelman said.

Former Manhattan prosecutor Michael Bachner also said Cohen could prove problematic because he “may or may not be telling the absolute truth about what occurred.”

“Whenever you have as a significant or star witness in your case an individual who has an enormous amount of baggage, including having made false statements in the past — that is a very serious problem,” Bachner said.

Neither Cohen, Ryan nor Bragg’s office immediately returned requests for comment.

But Ryan told the Daily Mail he no longer represented Cohen and declined to discuss his 2018 letter, citing attorney-client privilege.

On Wednesday, Bragg unexpectedly postponed a planned session of the grand jury that’s been hearing evidence against Trump since early January.

The move came in the wake of testimony Monday by lawyer and Trump ally Robert Costello, with sources telling The Post that Bragg was concerned by what Costello told the panel and wanted to present an unidentified rebuttal witness.

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