In an apparent contradiction of President Trump, Rudy Giuliani told Sean Hannity on Wednesday that Trump knew about, and reimbursed his personal attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels in October 2016.
On April 6, when asked during a press conference on Air Force One if he had any knowledge of the payment, Trump bluntly said “no.”
But according to the former New York City mayor, who Trump recently hired to represent him in the ongoing Robert Mueller investigation, Trump fixer Michael Cohen “funneled it through the law firm, and the president repaid it.” Watch the clip above.
On Hannity’s Fox News show to discuss “something about paying some Stormy Daniels woman $130,000, which is gonna turn out to be perfectly legal,” Guiliani said. “That money was not campaign money.”
“Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know, it’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.”
“So,” Hannity interjected,”they funneled it through the law firm?”
“Funneled it through the law firm, and the president repaid it,” Guiliani replied.
“Oh. I didn’t know that he did,” said Hannity. “There’s no campaign finance law?”
“Zero. Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasn’t,” Guiliani continued. “I knew how much money Donald Trump put into that campaign, I said ‘$130,000? You’re gonna do a couple of checks for $130,000.’ When I heard Cohen’s retainer of $35,000 when he was doing no work for the resident, I said ‘that’s how he’s repaying it.’ With a little profit, a little margin for paying taxes.”
Update: After the comments caused an immediate furor on cable news and on social media, Giuliani told Washington Post reporter Robert Acosta that the president knew he would reveal this.
Giuliani tells me he just spoke w / POTUS. Tonight by phone. President "very pleased," Giuliani says. He says they discussed his revelation of the reimbursements long in advance. Does not expect to be fired. Insists his remarks on FNC were approved by Trump. Story TK.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 3, 2018
Q: The president’s not angry with you? He was aware you’d bring it up?
A: “Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. He was well-aware that at some point when I saw the opportunity, I was going to get this over with.”
Q: You spoke about this w/ him in recent days?
A: “Probably 4 or 5 days ago"— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 3, 2018
Previously:
“Do you know the president didn’t know about this?” asked Hannity.
“He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael [Cohen] took care of things like this. Like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every little thing that comes along,” added Guiliani.
Guiliani’s startling statement came just over an hour before Wednesday’s episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” featuring Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
Avenatti revealed new evidence in Daniels’ ongoing lawsuits against Trump during the episode, which airs at 11:30 p.m. on CBS.