Remember how, a few weeks ago, when it was announced that Rudy Giuliani had joined the Trump legal team, we were told that he’d been brought onboard to “negotiate an end” to the Mueller probe? Remember how Trump said in a statement that Giuliani would be working to get the whole matter “quickly resolved for the good of the country?” Well, it looks like that’s probably not going to happen…
Yes, as much as it pains me to say it, it looks as though I was wrong when I wrote on April 19, “Within a few days at most, I predict all of the uncertainty and chaos of the past year will be behind us, and we’ll all be raising a glass to Rudy Giuliani… our nation’s greatest legal mind… the one man capable of sorting out the simple misunderstandings upon which the Mueller probe was constructed.”
This evening, on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, Giuliani, in his role as Trump’s attorney, appeared to actually make things considerable worse for his client. Donald Trump, Giuliani told a shocked Hannity, not only knew of the pay-off to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, but he reimbursed his “fixer,” Michael Cohen, who had initially come up with the $130,000 by opening a home equity line of credit on his home. The money, Giuliani told Hannity, was “funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it.” And this, of course, directly contradicts Trump’s previous statements… With more on that, here’s an excerpt from tonight’s Washington Post.
…Last month, a reporter on Air Force One pressed Trump about the payment, asking him, “Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?”
Trump responded, “No.”
The reporter then asked, “Then why did Michael Cohen make [the payment], if there was no truth to her allegations?”
“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” Trump said. “Michael’s my attorney, and you’ll have to ask Michael.”
Another reporter asked the president, “Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?”
“No,” Trump said. “I don’t know.”
On Wednesday night, Giuliani said Trump repaid Cohen through a series of payments over a period of months, but didn’t specify when they occurred…
And, here’s the best part. This admission of Giuliani’s means that felony charges could now be leveled against Donald Trump for bank fraud, violations of campaign finance law and money laundering, right alongside Michael Cohen. Now that we know that Trump was aware of the hush money payment, it’s just a matter of when he knew it, and when the funds were transferred. [“According to Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen were co-conspirators in a felony,” Michael Avenatti, the lead attorney for Stormy Daniels, told the press this evening. “Now it is time for justice to be served, and we intend to serve it.”]
Here, for those of you who don’t watch Fox News every evening, is the clip where Giuliani spills the beans.
🚨 Giuliani says Trump repaid Cohen the $130,000 used as hush money for Stormy Daniels pic.twitter.com/pqNtZthgwf
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) May 3, 2018
[Oh, and Giuliani also said that Comey was fired because he refused to say that Trump wasn’t a target of the Russia investigations, which, one would think, may also come back to haunt Donald Trump.]
update: Trump has responded, saying that it’s “very common among celebrities and people of wealth” to pay-off sex workers in such a manner. [Now, just close your eyes and imagine for a moment if this same scenario had payed out during the Obama administration.]
update: I just want Giuliani to keep on talking.
Giuliani was a mess on This Week this morning. @GStephanopoulos destroyed him. This guy is doing @realDonaldTrump no favors. pic.twitter.com/3kfU2uu9X6
— John Aravosis (@aravosis) May 6, 2018
15 Comments
And the “abortion is murder crew” and the “NRA Army” are going to say, “yeah? So what.” They are totally fine with constant lying, absurd corruption and the descent into fascism if they think they’ll get Roe overturned, same-sex marriage overturned, and guns in every pot.
Obviously trump is guilty as hell of dozens of offenses, but how do we resolve it when a huge swath of the populace no longer values rule of law?
A large swathe of the US population has valued and supported only the selective application of the law to particular groups of society for a long time now. This is not just a far-right thing. Many are complicit in letting equal justice standards slide so low as to get us to this point.
I suspect, by the end of this, we’ll discover that the Trump Organization has its one abortion doctor on the payroll.
NEW: Sarah Sanders refuses to answer multiple questions about why she and Trump made statements about payment Stormy Daniels payment that we now know aren’t true.
Sanders says she can’t comment due to ongoing litigation.
The Fox News spin: https://twitter.com/foxandfriends/status/992036303020507137
Rudy Giuliani may have just helped build the case that Trump obstructed justice, a former prosecutor tells me.
By admitting that Trump fired Comey because he wouldn’t publicly clear him, Rudy confirmed a key charge in Comey’s memos.
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/992040701276901377
“Rudy knows it’s a witch-hunt. He started yesterday. He’ll get his facts straight. He’s a great guy.” -Trump
“I’m not changing any stories.” -Trump
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/992412975511277568
Trump on Stormy Daniels: “We’re not changing any stories”
Reporter: “You said on Air Force One that you did not know anything about the payments”
Trump: “You take a look at what I said…”
Reporter: “You said no when I asked you… about the payment”
cnn.it/2KAeXFz
The Democrats only hope is to trap Trump into a perjury rap.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49350.htm
Most Americans don’t have a clue how our wars are run. fwiw
http://www.janes.com/article/79723/us-seeks-airborne-rescue-and-recovery-for-sof-in-yemen
I love watching the administration try to explain the pay off to Stormy Daniels because there is absolutely no way to spin it where it isn’t a crime.
“$130,000 is not a great deal of money,” Rudy Giuliani says in defense of Trump.
…and the title of this thread is relevant once again.
Through his agents, Putin has been feeding Giuliani fabricated information regarding the Bidens. It’s working like a charm because Trumpanzees can’t resist any bait if it it seems to serve their objectives.