Rudy Giuliani To the... Rescue?

I’ve noted  before it’s hard to write about politics on this blog. There’s always something going on somehow somewhere. 

 

Rudy Giuliani joined Donald Trump’s legal team with a mission to shut down all the investigations into Trump and his associates.

 

So get a load of this.  Instead, Giuliani’s appearance on Fox News  with Sean Hannity on Wednesday night may have made things worse for this client.

 

Rudy says Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment Cohen had made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford which is a piece of info forever lodged into my brain). The money was to buy her silence about an alleged affair.

 

Then Skeletor… I mean, Rudy Giuliani decided to also add that Trump “did know about the general arrangements” of the payment.

 

Everything Giuliani said on this subject totally contradicts all of Li’l Donnie’s previous denials about this whole mess.

 

And speaking of messes, Giuliani probably made ongoing litigation between Daniels and Li’l Donnie a whole lot messier.  

 

Trump went on Twitter Thursday morning to say this (and see if you can spot what’s odd here): 

 

“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 very common among celebrities and people of wealth.”

 

Yeah, that does not sound like the way Trump usually spouts off on Twitter.

 

Then there was this follow up Trump tweet: 

 

“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 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 [sic] in this transaction.”

 

Still thinking this does not sound like Trump at all except spelling “role” as “roll” is throwing me off.  

 

Then Rudy Giuliani decided to cause even more trouble.

 

During a Thursday morning interview on (where else?) “Fox & Friends,” Giuliani had this to say:  

 

“Imagine if that came out on October 15th, 2016, in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton. Cohen didn't even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”

 

This is an important distinction to make.  Even if money was paid out of Cohen’s back pocket or Trump’s McDonald’s money, funds paid to protect his campaign from political damage could be a violation of campaign finance law. As a candidate, Trump could spend whatever the hell he wanted of his own funds on his campaign, but such sums still have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission.  

If the purpose of the $130,000 payment was to protect Trump’s campaign, it can be considered what is called a “contribution in kind” and thus would be considered a donation requiring reporting to the FEC. 

 

So how badly has Rudy Giuliani botched things up for Li’l Donnie Trump?  Giuliani insists his statements on this issue are no mistake but done in consultation with Trump. Giuliani said, "He was well-aware that at some point when I saw the opportunity, I was going to get this over with.” 

 

It may well be that the investigation into Cohen has already uncovered the repayment from Trump and Giuliani’s looking to get ahead of that revelation. 

 

So what does this all mean for Li’l Donnie Trump and keeping his ignorant fat ass in the Oval Office? If anyone else was President, this would be a career killer. But for Trump, this just another damn day with another damn wad of garbage to add to the ever growing garbage heap.