This morning Steve Deace laid out the complete chain of events this year on the Trump/Stormy Daniels saga:
First there was a complete denial. Then Cohen admitted he paid Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket.
Then Trump denied in public on Air Force One he knew anything at all about Cohen’s payments, which implicated Cohen in a potential campaign finance law violation for an undisclosed/false campaign disclosure because he was an agent of the Trump presidential campaign at the time. Thus, not coincidentally, the very next business day after the president said this the FBI had a subpoena to raid Cohen’s offices.
Then Cohen was arrested. Giuliani was brought in to fix this, and be the media face of the Trump legal defense, which just lost its top lawyer as well.
Giuliani’s first media offensive was last night. And Giuliani promptly outed the president’s affair he denied, and even went so far as to say Trump reimbursed Cohen the hush money he paid Daniels. Which means Cohen isn’t potentially guilty of violating campaign finance law for an undisclosed/false disclosure — the president is.
This tact confused even the likes of Laura Ingraham, and Giuliani doubled-down by telling the Washington Post the president oked him saying these things. Until Giuliani later back-tracked, and claimed that Trump did reimburse Cohen but Trump had no idea specifically what the money was for. Just that it covered “expenses” for Cohen.
Now the president is saying he did reimburse Cohen specifically for the porn star hush money, he did it to stop her from making false allegations against him, and that these sorts of payoffs are common among celebrities wrongfully accused. This is now the 5th different version of the story.
I have not embellished any of these points. I think we can finally put the 4-dimensional chess talking point to bed once and for all.
I know, it’s shorter than I thought it would be too. I do have one main disagreement however.
Deace says… “Until Giuliani later back-tracked, and claimed that Trump did reimburse Cohen but Trump had no idea specifically what the money was for. Just that it covered “expenses” for Cohen.”
I went back and listened to the interview on Hannity last night, and Giuliani said then that Trump didn’t know the specifics of the payments:
HANNITY: Do you know the president didn’t know about this? I believe that’s what Michael had said.
GIULIANI: He 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, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.
So I think the charge that Giuliani backtracked – suggesting that he changed his story on this – is wrong. From what I heard last night and this morning, he’s been consistent on this point.
I also don’t think this is true either, where Deace says… “And Giuliani promptly outed the president’s affair he denied…”
I think that is an embellishment, despite Deace’s attempts to keep from embellishing. Just to be clear, I’m not saying I disagree with Deace’s reasoned conclusion here, but Giuliani didn’t out Trump’s affair last night. He simply outed the reimbursement of the Stormy payment. To most reasoned people that suggests the affair did happen, but just wanted to clear up that point.
Otherwise, I think the chain of events is helpful.
I know I’ll take flack from some of you over this, but I do think Giuliani’s account of how this went down is possible. I’m not sure I believe it, but I don’t want to rule out that it is possible that Cohen did act on his own and that Trump knew nothing of the specific payments to Stormy. What I find hard to believe (aside from the obvious) is that Cohen never mentioned it to Trump – even after the fact, while they were sipping cocktails in Trump Tower (or something).
The story does sound too good to be true, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.