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During Tuesday night’s jaw-dropping ramble on Fox, Rudy Giuliani not only called for blowing away the rule of law and jailing everyone who didn’t bow to Trump, but also admitted that Trump didn’t just know about the payments given to Stormy Daniels by Michael Cohen, but had paid Cohen back. Then, in a discussion with the New York Times, Giuliani made it even worse …
“Some time after the campaign is over, they set up a reimbursement, $35,000 a month, out of his personal family account,” Mr. Giuliani said. He added that over all, Mr. Cohen was paid $460,000 or $470,000 from Mr. Trump through those payments, which also included money for “incidental expenses” that he had incurred on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
Which would seem like a patent admission that Cohen not only handled the Daniels’ affair for Trump, but held off getting repaid until after the election and took his repayments in small chunks that seem specifically designed to disguise their purpose to both the FEC and SEC. And it all points a big red arrow at what everyone knew to be a lie to begin with.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One … Trump said he had not been aware that Cohen had made the payment, nor did not know where the money came from.
Now Trump is forced to come up with a brand-new story. And of course that’s coming out one tweet at a time, in messages clearly dictated by the firm of Whoever His Lawyer Is This Morning.
But whoever is coaching Trump, his legal ground here is worse than wobbly. And of course, there’s more.
Trump went on to say that it’s only normal that he should be paying $130,000 to a porn star. Happens to rich people all the time.
And now he’s going to go after Stormy Daniels. Because that’s what will certainly make this all go away and make Daniels’s attorney—who has successfully goaded Trump at every turn—finally shut up.
“Nothing to do with the campaign” is the new “No collusion.” Trump can say it all he wants, but it doesn’t make it true, and doesn’t make it legal. It wasn’t just a loan he was required to report, Trump obviously and deliberately delayed and spread out the payments to Cohen in an effort to hide this loan.
And the most interesting bit may be—what did the other $340,000 that Trump slipped to Cohen after the election pay for? What were those “incidental expenses” and other costs that required Trump to write all those checks? All those checks sized carefully below the line that would ring bells with financial authorities? Was Cohen getting that money for himself … or were there more Stormys on the horizon? What kind of “eruptions” are still to come?
The story of the last year has been one of Donald Trump relentlessly cutting away anyone with the least amount of competence, to leave behind only the syc’ist of sycophants. Because Trump genuinely believes he’s the smartest guy in the room. And every day he manages to put everyone who has left in a tie for happiest person on earth.