Donald Trump went on Fox News to explain how he isn’t guilty of felony violations of campaign finance law for the actions he directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to take, or the scheme he cooked up with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. And in 10 minutes, Trump managed to shred every one of his arguments with zero need for cross examination.
Appearing with Harris Faulkner—whose previous television role was, appropriately enough, serving as a host for tabloid journalism staple A Current Affair—Trump explained that the AMI deal couldn’t be campaign related because …
Trump: I don't think that even paid any money to that tabloid.
How Trump even thought insisting that Pecker did the whole thing as a favor to Trump, without making money from the deal was somehow exonerating … might take diagrams. But then Trump went on to talk about his former attorney Michael Cohen. Trump insisted that he “made a mistake” in hiring Cohen. And as in tweets earlier in the day, Trump continued to insist that the felony violations of campaign law weren’t crimes, and that there was no reason for Cohen to have pleaded guilty.
Trump: They put that on to embarrass me. They put those two charges on to embarrass me.
Trump didn’t just rant on this point: he came to the interview with printouts of a story claiming that the campaign violations were no big deal. He then forced these printouts on Faulkner during the interview. But Trump was at his best when he elaborated on Cohen. Trump retreated again behind the idea that “He is a lawyer” and “I never directed him to do anything wrong” and "Whatever he did, he did on his own.” That, despite the fact that Trump was directly involved in plotting a scheme to bury the stories of women who came forward, and to hide the payments.
And then, after repeated insistence that Cohen was a lawyer and Trump was just a clueless client … Trump executed a judo flip on his own story.
Trump said that Cohen was “a big supporter” on the condo board of a Trump building and “seemed like a good guy.” This was apparently enough for Trump to hire Cohen, give him the office next to Trump’s, employ him for a decade, and make him vice president of the Trump Organization. Cohen must have been really impressive on that condo board.
And after going out of his way to play up Cohen’s role as an all-knowing attorney who should have known better than to let his boss plan and carry out a criminal enterprise, Trump could not resist running down Cohen. Just as other longtime Trump advisers became passing acquaintances once they fell under the eye of Robert Mueller, Trump couldn’t help diminishing Cohen’s role even when it undercut his own alibi. Trump declared that Cohen did more public relations than legal work. When it came to being an on-air surrogate, Trump said that Cohen was ”okay on television." But when it came to Trump’s legal wrangling, Cohen was trusted with only "very low-level work."
Which, again, is exactly what you would expect from someone who worked in the room next to Trump. And who was a senior vice president of the Trump Organization. For more than 10 years.
Trump’s finished off with a slogan that seems a little bit diminished from what he promised the country before the election.
Trump: I hire usually good people.
Honestly, the campaign violations are significant. Trump’s continued lies about the campaign violations are even more significant. Any lies he told Robert Mueller on his written responses will be even more significant.
And all of it is likely to seem like peanuts when the details of what was redacted on Michael Flynn’s statements and Paul Manafort’s sealed sentencing document become public.