By Aaron Miller-
Rudy Giuliani’s comments that president Trump reimbursed his lawyer Michael Cohen of the $130,000 he made to Stormy Daniels shows he has been out of touch with developments in this saga.
The narrative from the Trump team previously was that the president was unaware of the steps taken by his lawyer to pay Stormy Daniels hush money. Guiliana’s revelation to Fox News is damaging to Trump’s defense, but only if the money he used was campaign money. Giuliana has insisted that the money was not campaigning money, and no evidence has surfaced to suggest that it is. What the revelation has informed the world is that president Trump was aware his lawyer paid out Stormy Daniels and even reimbursed his lawyer for his expenses.
The payment which was done to prevent the allegation from harming Trump’s presidential campaign is a course many in his shoes would have taken. What matters most is whether the allegation is true or not. If it is, then he was simply trying to mask his infidelity of the past, but if it is untrue, the president’s lawyer can be said to have been fending off hostile contamination to Trump’s campaign. Donald Trump’s campaign had already been facing serious challenges following leakages of old tapes in which Trump had made distasteful remarks about women.
The White House never formally acknowledged Trump’s knowledge of the payment; White press Secretary Sarah Trump said she didn’t know about it until Thursday’s briefing.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters during Thursday’s briefing she only learned that Trump had reimbursed Cohen when Giuliani said it on television.
“The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,” Sanders.
Donald Trump’s admission that personal legal team arranged a payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent allegations of an affair coming out as nothing new. The revelation that Trump knew about it is the news.
The former New York City mayor’s explanation for the $130,000 payment to Daniels has led some to believe that it ran afoul of campaign-finance laws.
“It certainly appears that the $130,000 that was paid to Daniels was a payment made in connection with the election,” said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center.
On Thursday morning, Trump tweeted that Cohen “received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign … used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair.”
“Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction,” the president insisted.