Breaking on NBC news right now, Rudy Guiliani has apparently admitted to knowing that Trump paid Michael Cohen the $130,000 in order to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about the night when they did not have sex – if you are to believe Trump.
Whoa.
Look, we have assumed from the moment we heard that Stormy got paid that Trump paid her off to keep her quiet in the run-up to the election. But, as with all things Trump, such “realities” can be hidden extremely well by people familiar with complex financial transactions, and real questions remained whether that money could ever be effectively traced back to Trump.
But, never underestimate Rudy Guiliani’s ability to walk into a china shop, take a good look around, and throw a grenade. Details are still emerging as to how/why Guiliani admitted such damaging information, proving for the umpteenth time that Donald Trump remains the world’s single worst, but most prolific, liar.
The ramifications will be thorough and severe. First, though the “Always Trumpers” see Trump lie all the time, they generally have just enough “plausible deniability” to at least justify their belief in Trump, something they can point to that could create just enough wiggle room. Not this time, he was right there on the electric teevee, saying he knew nothing about it. There are campaign finance laws implicated by the payment, though Trump personally paying for her silence may indeed be a means around such a law – more research on that later, promise. There are also questions about lies to FBI investigators, by Cohen, and – by extension, perhaps Donald Trump, if Trump told Cohen to lie to the FBI, which would be conspiracy to defraud the government and witness tampering, among other crimes. Jesus, there’s also the fact that Trump stood in front of the nation and said he knew nothing about this, had no idea what people were talking about, knew nothing about Cohen’s payment, said he never had sex with her, and now this.
This is our new normal, of course.
Just today, just fking today, we had allegations that Trump may have conspired in a theft of medical records against HIPPA violations among many state crimes, we had news that Mueller has had to threaten to subpoena Trump because Trump seems insistent upon becoming the first president ever to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement, and we end the day by finding out that Trump lied through his reptile brain about all things Stormy, and indeed paid her off.
Hey, at least Trump made a payment, most people get stiffed with promises to pay, and then left to sue. Things are looking up?
Much much more on this tomorrow, when I am sure we’ll learn of a half dozen new felonies in which our president is likely implicated.
