The first rule of politics is: When you are burying yourself, stop digging. (The second may be: When your opponent is drowning, remain silent. Hence, the appropriate silence of most Democratic politicians as Rudolph W. Giuliani makes mincemeat out of any cogent defense for President Trump in the Stormy Daniels matter.)
On the Lawfare blog, former White House counsel Bob Bauer delves into just a few of the questions Giuliani has opened up:
Giuliani declines to say when Trump knew the purpose of the payments and authorized the reimbursements, or even the period over which the installments were paid. This is an important point, and yet Giuliani continues to waffle on the answer. The issue of timing may shed light on Trump’s motivations for the payments. And Giuliani has argued that [Trump lawyer Michael] Cohen was “sometimes” paid for his help to Trump, and sometimes not: In the Daniels matter, the help was not forthcoming immediately, but much later. What prompted Trump to begin paying? And when did he begin doing so?
Giuliani has also not explained why Trump made the repayment in installments. If the purpose of paying Cohen was to dispose of any issue of a campaign finance violation, then it is difficult to understand why the self-described billionaire — whom Giuliani described as unconcerned with a payment as small as $130,000 — broke the payment out over several months. Again, the argument that reimbursement would resolve the legal issue makes little sense. But even if we accept it at face value, each month that the Cohen payment was not fully reimbursed, the amounts unpaid would constitute a continuing legal issue. One could see the installments as one way that the president could keep Cohen’s attention, stringing out the reimbursement to keep Cohen close.
In other words, the existence of a slush fund, refilled on a regular basis by Trump, raises a host of legal questions including, but not limited to: the origin of the money; the level of detail Trump was given about messes that Cohen cleaned up; what exactly those messes were; how many messes Cohen cleaned up; and whether Cohen and Trump complied with all banking and tax regulations.
It did not help when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointedly refused to say whether Trump had paid off other women. The Post reported:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday offered another non-denial denial when asked whether Cohen may have paid off other women, in addition to Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford). “I’m not aware of any other activity,” Sanders said, “but I would refer you to Rudy Giuliani to respond to any of those questions or anybody else on the president’s outside counsel.”
If you recall, Giuliani’s answer was that he wasn’t aware but that, if it was “necessary,” Cohen would have taken care of other female complainants as well.
With regard to Trump’s hush-money payouts as well as his business dealings — including purchases of properties for cash — Cohen sure looks like a key witness. You can understand why the president might be panicky. Cohen could, at the very least, have evidence that Trump was doing deals with Russia when he has denied doing so. These deals may be perfectly legal, but any secret financial ties to Russia may provide the reason for Trump’s effort to curtail and derail the Russia investigation. Moreover, if a president has so many sources of liability that he has to set up an arrangement whereby he can deny knowledge of specific claims, one might presume Russian intelligence officials would be able to pick that up as well.
The entire nexus of issues involving Trump women, hush money and Cohen fall within the purview of the prosecutors and FBI operating from the Southern District of New York. Alas, Trump will need to start from scratch if he is to discredit a whole other set of investigators. He might consider getting counsel that hasn’t analogized these men and women to Nazi stormtroopers.