President Trump needed to explain Giuliani’s comments that left Michael Avenatti, the loquacious attorney for Stormy Daniels, “speechless.”
This morning, May 3, President Trump acted as his own Public Relations Manager attempting to influencing and controlling his reputation after his lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on FoxNew’s Hannity that Trump repaid his personal attorney $130,000 in a deal made just before the 2016 election to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about her tryst with the president.
Trump took to Twitter early in the morning to apparently make explanations, that maybe are very common for wrong-doing celebrities, but are far from being morally acceptable, let alone politically correct if you are holding the highest office chair.
Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018
…very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018
…despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018
Why did President Trump have to tweet about it?
What his lawyer Giuliani said talking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, appears to contradict Trump himself, who said he did not know about the payment made by lawyer Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. The President has denied Daniels’ claims of an affair in 2006.
The campaign finance issue appeared to be Giuliani’s main motive for appearing on the show — to deny that there was any wrongdoing because Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels just before the 2016 election that could count as an illegal contribution to President Trump’s campaign.
Giuliani added that the president “didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know, but he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this.”
He later went to speak to the New York Times, saying: “Some time after the campaign is over, they set up a reimbursement, $35,000 a month, out of his personal family account.” The sum paid was $460,000-$470,000, including expenses, he said.
The President knows —I hope so— that our federal law restricts how much individuals and organizations can contribute to campaign financing and there are also strict regulations on the disclosure of the financing. The $130,000 would exceed the amount an individual can donate to a presidential campaign and any repayment by the Trump campaign would violate the law.
As Giuliani said that President Trump was aware of what he was going to say on Fox News and that he had spoken to the president before and after the interview, client and lawyer are in this together. So, are they trying to say Cohen’s payment to Daniels was a loan to the campaign?
If so, the president could face questions as to why his personal financial disclosure form from June 2017 made no mention of any debt to his lawyer Cohen. The repayment would have had to be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission if it were an election-related expense. A willful violation could be a crime.
Cohen, for his part, told the New York Times in February: “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”
The breakdown of the above-mentioned happenings within less than 24 hours has us all —and for that matter, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Daniels’ lawyer, Cohen’s prosecutors, and the vast majority of the American People— thinking that there are things in their story that don’t add up.
The president was the first to tweet about it.
Former New York mayor, now Trump’s personal (or maybe soon to be ex) lawyer appeared to freelancing and caught the president and the White House communications team off-guard, even though he claims that President Trump was aware.
This President has managed to sail through all the political scandals of his administration in such a short term for now, but the Stormy Daniels’ scandal has become a cloud too dark for him.
Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’s media-savvy lawyer, had said on NBC that there was “no question” Trump knew about the agreement, though the say-anything president had been conspicuously quiet on Daniels, and the White House had always denied her claims until Giuliani came along
The rest of the story?
Stay tuned. There have been odd, ‘House of Cards’ type shocking disclosures lately and we might be closer to the truth than expected.
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After Saga on TV and Three Tweets, Trump Has More to Explain. Trump Tweeted to Explain Giuliani’s Controversial Comments
