The Atlantic

Trump and His Aides Have No Idea What They're Talking About

A procession of contradictory statements leaves the public no closer to understanding the president’s deal with Stormy Daniels, but clearly shows the White House’s dishonesty.
Source: Evan Vucci / AP

As yet another bizarre week comes to a close for the president, no one seems to know the reality of what happened between Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels, and Michael Cohen. The only thing that is proven beyond a reasonable doubt is that the White House is lying about it.

This particular drama began Wednesday evening, when Rudy Giuliani, a new addition to the president’s legal team, went on Sean Hannity’s TV show and said that Trump had personally repaid Cohen, his lawyer and sometimes-fixer, for the $130,000 Cohen paid to Daniels as hush money about her alleged affair with Trump some years earlier.

“I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know,” Giuliani said. “It’s not campaign money. No campaign-finance violation.”

This had the potential to be clever and elegant or else legally suicidal., there have been many explanations for the money paid to

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