So Hannity had a big exclusive with Rudy Giuliani, who talked to him for an hour on his show.
And Giuliani said that Trump paid off Mike Cohen for the $130,000 he gave to Stormy Daniels.
That seems like a problem:
What Rudy said initially: Cohen paid back by Trump thru his retainer “with a little profit” on his $35K retainer. “He didn’t know about the specifics of it. … But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this” https://t.co/jydyU3LfxT
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 3, 2018
Remarkable: Hannity tries to give Rudy opportunity to clean up comment Trump reimbursed him for Stormy payment. But Rudy insists: “I was talking about the $130K payment ... That was money paid by his lawyer ... and the president had reimbursed him over a period of several months”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 3, 2018
Hannity then insists that he “distinctly” remembers Cohen did it “on his own.” Rudy: “He did? I haven’t investigated that. No reason to dispute that.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 3, 2018
This is obvious, but still should be said: Giuliani’s reveal that Trump repaid Cohen $130,000 for hush money to Stormy Daniels renders the repeated denials to the American people from POTUS and his press secretary false and untrue.
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) May 3, 2018
Hannity moved on, but he seemed to pause over that admission from Giuliani. I have to think that the White House is going to have to walk that back tonight…
UPDATE:
Even Laura Ingraham couldn’t deny the problem:
“Did Trump pay it after April 6th?” Ingraham asked, the day Trump denied knowing about the payment. “The left is jumping all over that tonight, saying, ‘What the heck? He did know, he didn’t know? Rudy’s on TV?’ What’s going on here?”
“You have the president on tape on Air Force One saying he did not know about the payment, and you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen about that,” Ingraham said. “Rudy just goes on with Hannity and says ‘Oh no, he reimbursed them.’”
“I love Rudy, but they better have an explanation for that,” she added. “That’s a problem.”
Giuliani said during the interview that the payment didn’t violate campaign finance laws.
See? You just can’t trust Laura Ingraham, she has NO loyalty and faith in Trump like we #MAGA-people do. Shame on her!!!
UPDATE:
Here’s the video of Ingraham turning on Trump:
“…. okay. Uh. Uhm. Uh…” – @IngrahamAngle https://t.co/U8nOCLjKXZ pic.twitter.com/JcNY1AA1de
— ¡El Sooopèrr! ن c137 (@SooperMexican) May 3, 2018
Sad!
UPDATE:
Just as I suspected, Giuliani is playing 682nd level chess and the dumb mainstream media is playing chutes and ladders!!! After the Hannity performance, Giuliani told Maggie Haberman that it was ALL planned, and that Trump knew what he was going to say beforehand!!
In an interview with The New York Times shortly after his Fox News appearance, Mr. Giuliani said that he had documentation showing that Mr. Trump had personally made the payments, and he indicated that the goal was to conclusively demonstrate that there was no campaign finance violation involved.
“That removes the campaign finance violation, and we have all the documentary proof for it,” Mr. Giuliani said. He added that when the initial payment was made, Mr. Cohen did it “on his own authority.”
“Some time after the campaign is over, they set up a reimbursement, $35,000 a month, out of his personal family account,” Mr. Giuliani said, adding that over all, Mr. Cohen was paid $460,000 or $470,000 from Mr. Trump through those payments, including for “incidental expenses” that he had incurred on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
He says the other lawyers on the Trump team knew he was going to say that. AND they determined that Trump had paid back the funds paid to Stormy Daniels and didn’t even know about it. So no one is in trouble. Easy peasy!!!
UPDATE:
Nicolle Wallace, who is gone kinda nutty, actually has an interesting theory:
Entirely possible we are chasing the wrong shiny object (myself included). Why would Rudy + Trump want to take some blame/heat off Michael Cohen re: Stormy? Are they scared that he’s talking? Considering a deal?
— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) May 3, 2018
Hmmm. Also #MAGA!!!