Trump and his latest lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, declare war on Mueller

After more than a year of deceptive bobbing and weaving in the Robert Mueller investigation, President Trump has bought into the strategy that best suits his personal style: standing and fighting back.

In buying into the modus operandi of his latest defense lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump has taken on a kindred soul who agrees that the best defense is a good offense. He has unleashed a veteran political street fighter whose own philosophy of strike first and think later, if at all, fits snugly with the president's own.

Mr. Giuliani, for months preferring to remain an outsider in the Trump camp, has now decided to join it with an opening salvo in the friendly confines of Fox News. He has acknowledged that Mr. Trump did authorize the $130,000 hush-money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels while still denying a long-past sexual encounter with her.

Mr. Giuliani appears to have convinced Mr. Trump that the best way to get rid of this messy episode is to ‘fess up about it, and then argue no campaign money was involved, thus hopefully disposing of any legal threat.

The obvious price Mr. Trump has to pay in this strategy is that he must contradict his statement to a reporter in a recent Air Force One Q-and-A exchange that he knew nothing about the $130,000 payoff or who paid it. Mr. Trump referred the questioner to his private business lawyer, Michael

It may be that Messrs. Giuliani and Trump have concluded that the president's penchant for dealing in falsehoods, ranging from harmless fibs to monumental whoppers, has so inured American voters to his practice that there remains little downside to a few more outright lies from the president.