As the Washington Post reports, it’s not unusual for Donald Trump to lie. In fact, it’s harder to find Trump making a factual statement than one full of distortions, exaggerations, and flat-out lies. And all too frequently, as on the story of Trump’s year-long affair with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, there’s a lie where Trump lies, gets his staff to lie, doubles-down on the lie, and sticks with the lie long after everyone can clearly see that he is lying.
Hope Hicks: We have no knowledge of any of this.
That statement was one of many where Trump, or members of his staff, denied any relationship to McDougal or any knowledge about how her story had been purchased by the National Enquirer then quietly filed away. And that fact that it was Hope Hicks making the statement shows just how long this lie had been going on.
The release of the recording of a conversation between Donald Trump and Michael Cohen showed that not only did Trump lie about his relationship with McDougal, not only did he have White House staff lie for him over and over, Trump and Cohen engaged in a conspiracy to deceive Karen McDougal and shuffler her aside. Working with the CEO of AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, Trump had his proxies convinced McDougal that they wanted to publish her story. They then signed her to an exclusive contract that had her believing the word would get out, when the real intent was to sit on it. And it was Donald Trump who paid the tab, using AMI CEO David Pecker as a middleman.
It’s a story in which Trump lied and deceived in every imaginable way. He lied to his wife about the affair. He lied to McDougal about his intentions. He lied to the public about his relationship with McDougal. He lied about his knowledge of the National Enquirer story. He had his staff lie for him about his knowledge of all of the above. And he conspired with Cohen and Pecker to create one last lie—and kick in the teeth—for McDougal by convincing her that her story was being valued, when it was really being buried.
It’s a catalog of deception. It would be hard to conceive of a story in which Trump practiced more forms of dishonesty and enlisted more associates in his conspiracy of lies. Except, according to Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti, what Trump and Cohen did to McDougal is just one example out of many.
In the early hours of Thursday, Avenatti insisted there was more to come.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has since replied stating that the Cohen tape “makes clear [Stormy] Daniel claim is dead.” Which is … interesting, since there is absolutely nothing on the tape concerning Trump’s affair with adult actress Daniels. Perhaps even Giuliani is having trouble sorting Trumps nude models from his porn stars.
But there are definitely additional tapes from Cohen, and while Avenatti has been known to overplay his hand, he hasn’t—so far, at least—been guilty of the kind of exaggeration and deception coming from Trump or his representatives.
Meanwhile, Giuliani’s other task for this morning seems to be trying to literally insert words into the Trump–Cohen conversation that his conspiracy-mongering client never said.
Giuliani: I assure you that we listened to it numerous, numerous times. And the transcript makes it quite clear the end that President Trump says "don't pay with cash.
What does CNN’s audio expert think after listening to the same segment?
Expert: Trump then responded with, "I'll pay with cash.”
It was Cohen who was trying to talk Trump out of paying with cash, not the other way around. Because Michael Cohen may be a sleazeball who specializes in buying horny millionaires out of their philandering, but at least he’s not Donald Trump.