Giuliani backs down over payout
Donald Trump suggested yesterday that Rudy Giuliani, the aggressive new face of his legal team, needed to ‘‘get his facts straight’’ about the hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 US presidential election – and Giuliani quickly came up with a new version.
Trump chided Giuliani even as he insisted that ‘‘we’re not changing any stories’’ about the US$130,000 settlement, which was paid to Daniels to keep her quiet about her allegations of an affair with Trump. Hours later, Giuliani backed away from his previous suggestion that settlement last October had been made because Trump was in the home stretch of his campaign.
‘‘The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family,’’ Giuliani said. ‘‘It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.’’
Trump said Giuliani was
‘‘a great guy, but he just started a day ago’’, and that the former mayor of New York City was still ‘‘learning the subject matter’’.
Giuliani revealed this week that Trump knew about the payment to Daniels made by his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the president paid Cohen back. He insisted that Trump didn’t know the specifics of Cohen’s arrangement with Daniels until recently.
Giuliani’s suggestion that the president knew anything about the payments appeared to contradict Trump, who has repeatedly denied the affair and told reporters on Air Force One last month that he hadn’t known about a settlement with Daniels.
Trump’s irritation was plain yesterday when reporters reminded him of his previous denial. He blasted the media for focusing on ‘‘crap’’ stories like the Daniels matter and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The president claimed that ‘‘virtually everything’’ reported about the payments – which are the subject of swirling legal action – had been wrong. But he declined to elaborate.
Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted yesterday: ‘‘Mr Giuliani and Mr Trump are making it up as they go along.’’ He added: ‘‘How stupid do they think all of us are?’’