Trump’s liar, liar claims

US President Donald Trump yesterday accused his former lawyer Michael Cohen of lying under pressure of prosecution as the White House grappled with allegations Mr Trump orchestrated a campaign plan to buy the silence of two women who claimed to have had affairs with him.

Amid mounting legal and political threats, Mr Trump took to Twitter to accuse Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including campaign finance violations , of making up “stories to get a deal” from prosecutors.

Cohen told prosecutors the violations were coordinated by himself and Mr Trump.

No clear strategy has come out of the White House to manage the fallout. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted Mr Trump had done nothing wrong and was not the subject of criminal charges.

Mr Trump denied any wrongdoing in a US TV interview in which he argued, incor- rectly, the payouts weren’t “even a campaign violation” because he reimbursed Cohen personally, not with campaign funds.

Federal law restricts how much individuals can donate to a campaign, bars corporations from making direct contributions and requires the disclosure of transactions.

Cohen said he used shell companies to make payments to silence ex- Playboy model Karen McDougal and adultfilm actor Stormy Daniels for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.

Mr Trump has insisted he only found out about the payments after they were made, despite the release of a September 2016 taped conversation in which he and Cohen discuss a deal to pay McDougal for her story of a 2006 affair she says she had with Mr Trump.

The White House denied Mr Trump had lied. Ms Sanders called the assertion “ridiculous”.