Trump may face new legal threats
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s new legal team made a chaotic debut as Rudy Giuliani, who was tapped recently to be one of the president’s lawyers, potentially exposed his client to legal and political danger by publicly revealing the existence of secret payments to Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer.
After he moved into the White House, the president began paying Cohen $35,000 a month, Giuliani said, in part as reimbursement for a $130,000 payment that Cohen made to a pornographic film actress to keep her from going pub-
lic about an affair she said she had with Trump. The president confirmed he made payments to Cohen in a series of Twitter posts on Thursday morning.
The explosive revelation, which Giuliani said was intended to prove that Trump and Cohen violated no campaign laws, prompted frustration and disbelief among the president’s other legal and political advisers, some of whom said they feared the gambit could backfire.
Legally, the failure to disclose the payments could be a violation of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which requires that federal officials, including Trump, report any liabilities of more than $10,000 during the preceding year. Trump’s last disclosure report, which he signed and filed in June, mentions no debt to Cohen.
Politically, Giuliani’s remarks — made in television appearances and interviews — raised questions about Trump’s truthfulness and created a firestorm at the White House, where aides were caught off guard and furiously sought to deflect questions they could not answer. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary, said she had been unaware of the payments before
Giuliani’s interviews.
“Everyone is wondering, what in the world is he doing?” said George Arzt, a longtime New York Democratic consultant who has known Giuliani for decades. “I would not have sent out Rudy to talk about the investigation. But Trump likes chaos and Trump just added to the chaos.”
By the end of the day, the president and his advisers had done little to clarify the confusion that Giuliani had set in motion a night earlier.
Giuliani did not consult every member of the president’s legal team, or the network of lawyers around Washington whose clients
have been entangled in Trump’s legal disputes, according to several people close to the team. Emmet Flood, a lawyer hired by Trump on Wednesday, was not involved in Giuliani’s plans to reveal the payments to Cohen during an interview with Sean Hannity on his Fox News program, one person said.
The abrupt disclosure set off a flurry of calls between Trump’s lawyers as they sought to determine whether Giuliani meant to reveal the president’s reimbursement. Witnesses and lawyers around Washington scoured transcripts, watched television clips and called each other in an effort to grasp the consequences of what Giuliani had said.
The president’s other lawyers ultimately determined that Giuliani had consulted with Trump, people close to them said, but were left speechless about why he decided to make the disclosure in such a high-profile way and without any strategy to handle the fallout.
Giuliani recognized the situation was problematic, two people close to him said, because Trump had previously said on Air Force One that he was unaware of the hush payments to Stephanie Clifford, the actress who performs as Stormy Daniels. However, Trump and his aides see lying to or misleading the news media as far less troublesome than lying to investigators, they said.
Even some of the president’s own advisers said they were skeptical of Giuliani’s statements that Cohen entered into a settlement, made payments to a pornographic film actress and was reimbursed by the president all without Trump’s knowing why.
Giuliani’s disclosure is a sign of how Trump’s reshuffled legal team — which now includes a highly paid Washington lawyer, a famous former mayor, a constitutional lawyer who specializes in religious cases and former federal prosecutors — will function in the coming weeks as they sort out who takes the lead on representing the president.
Giuliani has said he is the lead lawyer dealing with the special counsel’s investigation in Washington. But his statements Wednesday night related to the continuing investigation in New York that is examining the conduct of Cohen. People close to the president are concerned that Trump and Giuliani may create more problems for themselves if they consult only with each other and leave out the other lawyers who may know more about the nuances of the cases.