Trump may have paid off more women, lawyer hints
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s new lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, continues to offer suggestions and opinion that could complicate matters for his client. On Sunday, he suggested that apart from porn star Stormy Daniels, other women may have been paid hush money to get them to stay silent about allegations against Trump.
Speaking to ABC’s This Week, Giuliani was asked if Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen had made other payments of the kind to Daniels, who has claimed to have had an affair with Trump in 2006. He said: “I have no knowledge of that but I...I would think if it was necessary, yes.”
The Daniels hush-money payment is the subject of a criminal investigation of Cohen for alleged bank fraud and violation of election campaign finance laws.
Giuliani also indicated Trump may refuse a subpoena to appear before special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and that Trump could invoke his right to remain silent.
When pressed, Giuliani said he would prefer the Hillary Clinton model, referring to the former secretary of state’s interview in connection to her use of a personal email server, in which she was not under oath when questioned and was responding to queries provided to her in advance.
The interviewer then asked Giuliani if he was confident that Trump would not invoke the Fifth Amendment, which accords Americans the right to remain silent in order to not incriminate themselves. He said: “How can I ever be confident of that? When I’m facing a situation with the president and all the other lawyers are, in which every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify, I’ve got a client who wants to testify, please, don’t... he said it yesterday.”