Rudy Giuliani Just Chose a Very Funny Time to Tell the Truth

Trump is not going to like it.

Cheriss May/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Michael Cohen’s client Donald Trump recently tapped Rudy Giuliani to be on his legal team, and tonight America’s Mayor went on the television show of Michael Cohen’s other client, Sean Hannity. The results weren’t great! Here’s how The Huffington Post put it:

In a sweeping interview on Fox News Wednesday night, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said President Donald Trump had repaid his lawyer Michael Cohen for his $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.

“It’s going to turn out to be perfectly legal; that money was not campaign money,” Giuliani, Trump’s new lead attorney regarding issues related to the special counsel’s Russia investigation, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know,” Giuliani continued, saying that the payment was “funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.”

Cohen has repeatedly said that he just paid the money himself out of the goodness of his heart or something, and Trump said last month that he knew nothing about it so oops?

You should watch the clip. Sean Hannity is all:

With good reason. If the president structured payments to Cohen over a period of time, as Giuliani suggested, “that’s a serious, serious problem,” Stormy Daniel’s lawyer Michael Avenatti told MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell in the immediate aftermath of the Fox appearance, raising the possibility that repayments could have been designed to avoid campaign finance scrutiny.

Watch the clip below:

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate