May 4-5, 2018: The Big Lying Orange Buffoon

 

5/4-5/18: Various members of the Liars’ Club start the weekend off by trying to explain which lies currently are official lies. 

 

Rudy was out of feet. 

Did the President of the United States know about the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels or not? In February, Trump’s personal attorney told the American people his client did not. Michael Cohen claimed he paid the settlement out of the goodness of his bottomless lawyer’s heart. 

Pressed by the free press to explain, Cohen claimed next that he used a home equity loan to raise the cash. 

Don’t worry, though, he was not reimbursed. (You had to be more than a little bit dense to swallow that.) 

Eventually, reporters forced Press Secretary Pinocchio to answer questions regarding the hush money payment (see: 3/8/18). Oh, no, Sanders swore, the president never knew about the payment. The president would never have sex with a porn lady! Trump always kept his weenie in his pants. 

Now, two months later, Pinocchio looked like she was swallowing castor oil while dealing with fresh questions. And you knew. Sanders had to go home, and sit up late at night, hating her job, knowing every day she was standing in front of reporters and the American people and trying to convince us a pile of hippo doo was a beautiful sculpture.

 

Reporters kept poking around for the truth. Eventually, representatives of the free press cornered the head of the Liars’ Club on Air Force One. Did Trump know anything about the payment to Daniels? 

“No,” he said. 

Then why did Cohen make the payment, a reporter inquired? 

“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” the president replied. “Michael Cohen is my attorney and you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.” 

At this point, you had to imagine only fools could be falling for this shtick. Still, ardent Trump fans believed every word he said. He could have stood and drooled for five minutes. They wouldn’t have cared or noticed.

 

Unfortunately, for the Liars’ Club, the story continued to unravel. Had Cohen worked in any capacity for the Trump Organization during the 2016 campaign? This could lead to questions about campaign finance violations if the answer were yes. “No!” all the members of the Club cried in unison. No one at the Trump Organization could believe anyone would ask such a dastardly question! Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, pointed out that at least one email sent by Cohen, related to the hush money payment, came from his address at the Trump Organization. 

Another legal filing related to the Daniels case was signed by Jill A. Martin, a different lawyer for the Trump Organization. Hey, no big deal, all the liars who worked at Fox News said. 

Martin was merely filling out legal papers on her free time. 

It was soon reported by The New York Times that a bunch of lawyers working for Trump were about to quit. In a pair of tweets in March the president howled about more “Fake News.” Goddam! He and his supporters hated “Fake News.” Eleven days later John Dowd, his top defender, resigned. Ty Cobb lasted longer, stepping down at the end of last month. As for the “Failing New York Times” and it’s “purposely…false story,” the reporter behind the article was soon shown to be approximately 103% right. Maggie Haberman had predicted that Emmet T. Flood would be added to Trump’s team. 

On May 2 he was. 

 

Rudy joins the Liars’ Club. 

The Liars’ Club had no choice but to add another big name to the ever-changing list of paid prevaricators. Trump would go with Rudy Giuliani. Lawyer Rudy immediately began assuring everyone that, no, the President of the United States would not sit down for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In his first full day on the job Rudy let slip on Sean Hannity’s show that Trump did know about the payment to Daniels. But don’t worry! Trump paid Cohen back. 

Hannity (a founding member of the Liars’ Club) seemed stunned. This was going to require a creative new round of lying, to replace all the lies Giuliani had just blown to bits. Hannity was happy to lie for Trump, so long as ratings remained high. But even his ill-informed and ill-served viewers might start to notice that the president was lying – at the very least, to his third wife. 

Rudy added helpfully that Trump paid Cohen back by putting him on a $35,000 monthly retainer, “with a little profit and a little extra margin for paying taxes.” So, what were we talking? Four months? Five? Five would make for a solid payday of $175,000, $130,000 for Stormy, $45,000 for Cohen. 

The president “didn’t know about the specifics of [the payment], as far as I know,” Rudy assured Sean, “but he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this. Like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along.”

 

In another interview later that day, Rudy stuck his other foot in his mouth. Okay. Cohen had been paid a total of $460,000 for his pains. Or it might have been $470,000. Giuliani wasn’t sure. 

If heads in MAGA hats were spinning, the next morning Rudy showed up on Fox & Friends and gave them another twirl. Giuliani tried to stick a third foot in his mouth, but he was out of feet. This time he offered up the nugget that Cohen might have gotten a great deal in the hush money settlement with Daniels. “My God, this is cheap,” Rudy said Cohen must have felt. “Let me get this signed up and signed off.” This was “pocket change” for a man like Trump. As Rudy saw it, $130,000 was nothing to worry about when it came to keeping a porn lady from spilling the beans. Just imagine, he said to the horrified hosts, “if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.” 

Yes, imagine. The Big Orange Buffoon might not be president. 

That wasn’t Trump’s real motivation. Oh, no. According to Rudy, he only wanted to spare his wife’s feelings. 

(And that would be why he was boinking the porn queen in the first place?)

 

Could the story get any more bizarre? It could. Thursday morning the Big Orange Buffoon had to do some tweet-lying. First, Trump claimed that any hush money paid “had nothing to do with the campaign.” Then he admitted his personal attorney had received a monthly retainer, as Rudy had said: 

…from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are.....

 

...very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,.....

 

...despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.”

 

The questions only multiplied. 

The First Lady had to be wondering how much Cohen was paid, and why, and how many women he hushed up by stuffing mouths with cash. We already know two Playboy Bunnies have accused Trump of conducting affairs. One of those affairs was before he married Melania, but at the time he was engaged to Marla Maples. The second took place during the period Trump was boinking Stormy, and when he was definitely married to Melania, his third wife. 

 

“The best information I had at the time.” 

The next day, Press Secretary Pinocchio tried to clean up Rudy’s first mess. According to The Hill, she was telling colleagues behind the scenes Giuliani’s comments left her in an “untenable position.”  

Now she had to go out in front of the press and admit this was the first time she had heard that her boss had reimbursed Cohen. It probably made her choke on her words to know she was standing at the podium, a pillar of Christian righteousness, and dissembling about payoffs to porn stars. 

Sanders soldiered on, saying six times during one press briefing that she had not been misleading the public. Not at all! Not at all! She was providing “the best information I had at the time.” 

(In other words, Trump was letting her lie.)

 

By Saturday morning a fresh layer of possible lies had been added to an already impressive pile. According to The New York Times, Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organization had: 

…known since last year the details of how Mr. Cohen was being reimbursed, which was mainly through payments of $35,000 per month from the trust that contains the president’s personal fortune, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement.

 

For those who care about the U.S. Constitution and believe absolutely in the rule of law, if even half of this were true, the questions were far more important than who did what, when and where, in matters of sleazy sex. If Trump would lie about this and lie without restraint, why would anyone, no matter what size MAGA hat they screwed to their cranium, not be coming to the realization that they had been sold a bill of goods in voting for the Big Lying Orange Buffoon.

How can you tell Sarah Sanders is lying? She's standing at the podium.