President Donald Trump reportedly spent over $27,000 of taxpayer money to track and monitor main stream media coverage of himself, and it may have been connected to the sensational story of Stormy Daniels.
The news comes from a group of Federal Procurement documents which were obtained by TMZ. According to the outlet, the Executive Office of the President authorized a payment of $27,075 to a company called TVEyes on Wednesday, March 7. The company tracks specific keywords in TV, radio and print media fore their clients. According to the documents, the federal government hired TVEyes for “SUPPORT – MANAGEMENT: PUBLIC RELATIONS.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
While the documents don’t specify exactly what storie(s) were being tracked, the payment was made on the day after adult film star Stormy Daniels sued Trump to invalidate her non-disclosure agreement. The lawsuit opened the floodgates on years-old rumors about the president’s infidelity.
Trump has refrained almost entirely from addressing the Stormy Daniels scandal. He allegedly had a one-time extra-marital affair with the adult film mogul back in 2006, just a year after marrying first lady Melania Trump, and a few short months after she gave birth to his youngest son, Barron Trump. Daniels has since discussed the encounter in detail on 60 minutes and other platforms, while the president has yet to comment.
Trump is not a first time customer at TVEyes. His office has used the service on occasion before, though they’ve never spent nearly this much money to do so.
In February of 2017, Trump made a payment of $9,504 to TVEyes, very close to the time that his then Chief of Staff, Reince Preibus, was accused of interfering with the FBI’s probe into Russian meddling with the 2016 election. However, the recent payment is reportedly the largest his office has ever made to the firm.
The Stormy Daniels story dominated headlines for several weeks this month. Not only did she claim to have had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump, but she said that he had threatened her and coerced her on several occasions to keep the affair a secret.
In her interview with 60 Minutes, Daniels said that she was approached in a parking lot by a strange man while she was with her infant daughter. The man warned her not to speak about her past with Trump, implying a violent outcome if she went to the press. After that, she was contacted about a non-disclosure agreement just weeks before the 2016 election.
Daniels is now suing Trump’s personal lawyer for defamation.
