Day 469: Trump’s Attorneys Continue to Be Incompetent
Rudy Giuliani’s first TV appearance as Trump’s counsel goes horribly wrong.
Donald Trump has had a revolving door of attorneys working for him over the past year-plus. Most prominently, they’re juggling a growing Russia probe and dealing with the fallout of a $130,000 payment to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, for an alleged affair.
On the Russia probe front, Trump’s newest lawyer, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Sean Hannity’s television show and openly admitted that Trump fired James Comey from his position as director of the FBI for not revealing if Trump was under federal investigation, saying:
“He fired Comey because he would not, among other things, say that he was not a target of the investigation. He’s entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that, and he couldn’t get that. So he fired him, and he said “I’m free of this guy.”
This is a brazen doubling-down of an earlier argument that Team Trump has tried to distance itself from. It’s essentially an admission that goes toward establishing an obstruction of justice case against Trump and undercuts Trump’s position that he fired Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe.
Giuliani was just getting started.
On the Daniels payment, there have been questions about what Trump knew and when. Initially, Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, claimed that he paid the money and privately groused to friends that he hadn’t been paid back. Trump, on Air Force One, just three weeks ago, told the press he wasn’t aware of any payment and didn’t know where his lawyer got the money to pay Daniels.
Giuliani discussed the Daniels payment with Hannity, stammering inarticulately that of course Trump knew about it.
Trump funneled the payment through a law firm, Giuliani sketchily explained. But, appearing to go off script, he also claimed that Cohen was repaid in $35,000 per month installments for no-show work to repay him for the Daniels payment. He explained this money took into account profit and taxes. Finally, trying to put a bow on it he claimed, “That money was not campaign money, sorry…It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.”
Giuliani seems to conflate the ideas of campaign cash and campaign finance laws. Just because the money was eventually paid by Trump and didn’t touch campaign bank accounts doesn’t absolve Trump of violating campaign finance laws. Cohen fronting the money acts as loan, which is required to be disclosed.
Giuliani openly admitted that Cohen’s payoff to Daniels was a loan and was paid back by Trump. Since it wasn’t disclosed on official forms, Trump is in violation of campaign finance laws.
After the reaction to Giuliani’s admissions, Trump tweeted Thursday morning a similar story to Giuliani: there was a non-disclosure agreement in place that was made by Cohen and it had nothing to do with the campaign.
Trump’s team’s story continues to change and there are few, if any, avenues that both make logical sense and keep Trump out of legal jeopardy. For instance, Giuliani claimed that Trump paid $130,000 to his attorney, but didn’t actually know what it was for.
Going on Hannity’s show — one of Trump’s biggest sycophants in the country— should have been a softball for Giuliani. Instead, in his first television interview as Trump’s attorney, he compounded Trump’s legal exposure in multiple ways.
469 days in, 993 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
