Oh man, I’m tempted to go see the commentary on Yahoo news regarding this matter, I just don’t know if I can go through with it. It’s too early in the morning for indigestion.
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I honestly believe that Rudolf honestly believes that he is helping Donald. This makes sense to me:
“That removes the campaign finance violation, and we have all the documentary proof for it,” he said. Mr. Giuliani added that when the initial payment was made, Mr. Cohen did it “on his own authority."
Since Michael’s office has been raided, these people must know that the FBI now has proof of the payment. And I wouldn’t put it past these guys that a long conversation has been had behind the scenes to try to convince Donald to come clean (or at least take a Q-tip to an oil spill).
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Such a string of lies. Where will it end?
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Hey, there’s no need to bring Zuckerberg into this…
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The bank reporting violation might be a Federal crime, but at least it isn’t a State crime. Federal crimes are no problem.
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Only Federal. Those he can fix.
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I don’t know why this is being read as a screw up.
Seems to me Rudy is just floating their new legal take on this in a typically idiot Trump manner. Sure it reveals Trump is a liar. But that happens weekly. Rudy himself has done it before.
A good lot of the campaign finance problems with the payment come out of Trump purportedly not reimbursing Cohen. Or not knowing about the payment. Or the possibility that Cohen was reimbursed with campaign funds.
So Rudy’s supposed bone headed move is really just taking those two things off the table. It was reimbursed. And it was from Trump’s personal funds.
The situation is still sketchy as fuck. So it’s gonna be sketchy as fuck. This is just moving the sketchy as fuck bits further from high crimes and misdemeanors territory.
Cohen still took out a personal loan to pay this. And you’ve got Rudy’s claim that it was routed through another law firm. Apparently it was paid in pieces. And their now claiming it was covered by a retainer. Didn’t catch it it was Cohen’s retainer or a different firms retainer.
This is just polishing a turd. Limiting the damage. And it smells like pretty standard/sensible legal strategy. If handled all Trumpy. And likely planned.
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Either that or he knew that Mueller already has evidence of the payment from the raid and was trying to get ahead of it by being interviewed by another of Cohen’s clients on a TV network patronised by Know-Nothings [bonus: he gets kicked off this slow-motion train wreck].
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I went and read through the Fux News comments. I want that 20 min of my life back.
One choice commet was this…
so Trump isnt a saint…Im sure 1 or 2 deplorables will be crushed…cmon libs this isnt going to sway any voters . I mean if it was sexual assault or some vile thing l;ike that sure but adultery? Libs you have made adultery mainstream and accepted.
So the time Trump said: I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.
That was perfectly fine in this person’s mind. Apparently.
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“It’s complicated.”
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As others have noted, this probably wasn’t a senile slip-up or mistake: it’s damage control… they want to get ahead of the story before the truth comes to light another way. They’ve decided the only way to skirt a campaign finance charge is to reveal that Trump personally refunded Cohen, so his $130k payment to Daniels was not a “contribution.” That this completely contradicts clear statements by Trump and his handlers is bad, but it’s not a crime, so that’s what they’re going for… I think there will be many more twists to this one before it’s all played out… Going to be a long one folks.
ETA: Others make better points below: this is a shitstorm and the payments are still probably illegal contributions
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Except thay he followed it up this morning by explicitly stating that the motive for the payment was to influence the outcome of the election, thus violating campaign finance laws.
GIULIANI: …Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?
Q: So to make it go away, they made this deal?
GIULIANI: Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He didn’t even ask.
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Doesn’t that depend on Stormy’s story being true, though? Is it really “influencing the election” if you’re preventing somebody else to influence the election through lies?
How confident are we that team Stormy can prove the affair?
That only shifts most of the violation from Cohen to Trump or the Trump Campaign or the Trump Organization. Depending on how the timing went, it could actually make things worse. If Cohen paid, then there was a delay before he was reimbursed or he was paid off in installments, he still made the Trump Campaign an unreported loan. Then the campaign made an unreported payment for services. If it was Trump himself or the Trump Organization, those payments were also illegal, either in lack of reporting or by their very nature.
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Stunning Revelation: Trump paid a woman $130k for her silence
Stunning Revelation: Trump’s lawyer claims he paid off the woman with Trump’s knowledge
Stunning Revelation: Trump says he had no knowledge, agreeing with his lawyer
Stunning Revelation: Trump’s other laywer says Trump did pay the woman off
What the hell is going on?!?
I think Giuliani doesn’t understand the campaign finance angle. It would exonerate Trump of being involved in illegal campaign contributions if the had paid her off with campaign money.
Yes it is. If your political opponent runs an ad saying you are going to dispose of nuclear waste in the Mississippi and you run a counter ad saying that’s total bullshit, that’s a campaign ad. Whether it was countering a lie or not doesn’t matter.
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That’s irrelevant. Whether true or not, paying someone to prevent them from saying something negative about the candidate is influencing the election.
Given that there were 15 women prior to the election who came forward with sexual assault claims against Trump, and the campaign just denied, denied, denied, what is the likelihood that Daniel’s claims are false?
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Not entirely. It still went unreported.
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Working with Trump in any capacity at this point is probably definitive proof of a very serious psychological or neurological condition.
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