OAN retracts article falsely claiming Michael Cohen had affair with Stormy Daniels

The far-right One America News Network has retracted an article that falselystated that Michael Cohen had an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Cohen facilitated a $130,000 hush money payment to Ms Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged 2006 affair with Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Now, Mr Trump is on criminal trial in Manhattan facing 34 counts of falsifying business records over those hush money payments. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has denied an affair took place.

Cohen, Mr Trump’s former attorney and “fixer” who has served time in prison for campaign finance violations and other crimes, is central to the case against Mr Trump and is expected to be one of the prosecution’s star witnesses at trial.

On 27 March, OAN published an article quoting a post from an X user who falsely claimed to have obtained information in 2018 from Michael Avenatti – Ms Daniels’ lawyer at the time. The post stated that Cohen had an affair with Ms Daniels starting in 2006, adding that Cohen made up the hush money scenario to extort the Trump Organization ahead of the 2016 election.

In a statement on Monday, OAN announced that the story – Whistleblower: Avenatti Alleged Cohen­ Daniels Affair Since 2006, Pre-2016 Trump Extortion Plan – was being taken down from all sites and social media.

The retraction was reached as part of a settlement with Cohen, the network added.

“Mr Avenatti has denied making the allegations. OAN apologizes to Mr Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused him,” OAN said.

The network added that it was Cohen who “alerted” the network to the inaccuracy of the article.

“To be clear, no evidence suggests that Mr Cohen and Ms Daniels were