May 7, 2018: Lying to Help a Liar

 

5/7/18: The Rudy Giuliani Traveling Circus makes the talk show rounds. Now he says the president wants to testify in the Mueller probe. 

However, Rudy insists that Trump shouldn’t have to. If he did, the president would probably invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Kellyanne Conway's main job: Lying for the liar.

 

No one, least of all Rudy, can say exactly what Trump knew about the payoff to Stormy Daniels, or when he knew what he knew, or answer inquiries about other possible payments. In yet another disastrous interview, Rudy responds to a question by George Stephanopoulos on the show This Week. Could Lawyer Cohen have made more payments to more women? 

“I have no knowledge of that,” Giuliani winces and blinks. “But I would think if it was necessary, yes.” 

 

Even Kellyanne Conway, glibbest of liars, her salary paid by taxpayers, told Jake Tapper on CNN she had no idea if similar payoffs were made to anyone else. For once she dared not risk a definitive “no.” 

“They didn’t cross my desk as campaign manager,” she dodged. “And I would also tell you that I’m happy to answer these questions, but I have limited visibility into what Mayor Giuliani is talking about, because, politely, he is the president’s counsel. I am the president's counselor,” she said. 

Different liars, different jobs. 

She insisted that Trump had not been lying when he told reporters that he did not know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. 

“No,” he had said. He did not elaborate. 

Pressed again on why Cohen would have made the payment, Trump had responded: “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.” Only Cohen knew what was going on. Now Conway insisted the Big Orange Buffoon still wasn’t lying. 

So, she still wasn’t lying. 

 

The unenviable position of lying to help a liar. 

Conway tap-danced and told Tapper that you had to look at the president’s three recent tweets to understand the point he had been trying to make. “I’m going to relay to you what the president has told me, which is the best I can do. He didn’t know it at the time the payment occurred.” 

Tapper refused to let Conway off the hook.  

He noted that reporters on Air Force One had asked the president, “Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?” 

He responded, “No. No. What else?” 

The immediate follow up question was, “Do you know where he [Cohen] got the money to make that payment?” 

“No. I don’t know,” Trump replied. 

“That’s present tense,” Tapper pointed out to Conway. “But he did know.”

 

Conway was in the unenviable position of lying to help a liar. Giuliani had made her lie for Sunday morning obsolete. He had admitted that Trump paid Cohen back over several months – and that he paid him back before he denied knowing about the matter on Air Force One. 

Even Fox News was forced to report this story, because Giuliani had been speaking on Fox News. They just didn’t choose to put 1 + 1 together and tax the brains of loyal viewers. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: We learn that U.S. Senate investigators want to know if Jill Stein’s Green Party got money from the Russians during the 2016 campaign. 

Stein’s name has been linked to Don Jr. and the Senate’s interest is probably not good news for Don Jr. or the Trump team.