President’s Attorney Admits Cohen Was Reimbursed

He made it go away.

When asked by reporters a month ago if he knew about the payment to Ms Daniels, Mr Trump said: “No”.

Asked about Cohen’s denial, Giuliani said that he didn’t know whether Cohen had made the payment without asking Trump but that he had “no reason to dispute that”.

“The president has addressed these directly and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true”, she said in March when asked if Trump had approved of the payment.

Michael Avenatti, Daniels’s attorney, said yesterday that Trump had defamed his client with his latest tweets, particularly with his assertion that she was making “extortionist” accusations. He is also a member of the Trump campaign.

Donald Trump advisor and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani’s television interview blitz over the past 18 hours suggests the United States president may have violated laws about campaign finance or financial disclosures, watchdog groups say.

Rudy Giuliani suggested Wednesday night that it would be wrong for the special counsel to target Ivanka Trump, while Jared Kushner, being a man, is “disposable”. Bill Clinton lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky when he wagged his finger and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”.

Giuliani has also reportedly been warning Trump that Cohen might flip on the president if he thinks that a deal with prosecutors is his only option.

Trump ignored questions about the issue from the press, and guests, many of whom were political supporters of the president, shouted “shame on you” at reporters.

In addition to the Russian Federation questions, Giuliani said investigators could ask about possible obstruction of justice related to Trump’s firing a year ago of then-FBI Director James Comey.

Now look at Trump’s tweet, and parse it carefully.

Giuliani had dinner with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski before his Fox interview, a source told CNN.

The syntax is tortured, to be sure. Trump is anxious that the payment – which prevented a potential scandal just days before the 2016 election – might constitute an illegal campaign donation if Cohen used his own funds, as he has claimed, and was not reimbursed. “It doesn’t make sense that this was a routine payoff”. A lawyer’s retainer payment isn’t anything like a reimbursement payment for expenses.

It’s not exactly news that the president is a serial liar, serial adulterer and is willing to pay to settle legal disputes. He knew that Cohen was on a monthly retainer to handle matters like this.

Asked what questions might be appropriate, the lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a former NY mayor, suggested two to Reuters: “Was there some agreement with the Russians?” He told Holt: “In fact, when I chose to just do it, I said to myself, I said, “You know, this Russian Federation thing with Trump and Russian Federation is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won”.

Other legal experts said the payment may not qualify as the sort of financial obligation Trump would have been required to disclose.

“Most likely they had all the information they needed to search his office before the wiretap but wanted to see if they could cultivate more evidence from a wiretap before they executed the searches”, Goldman said. And, with those four words, Giuliani turned months and months of explanations and excuses about the Cohen payment on their head.

“Are they trying to trap him?” “Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no role in this transaction”.

Trump may also be protecting himself against a possible charge of conspiracy to commit election fraud derived from Cohen’s underlying crime of the unreported contribution.

Stormy Daniels’ attorney @MichaelAvenatti reacts to Cohen wiretap.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.