Page 254 - Ami News Today

Cronkite and said it is never important now for everyone to distinguish between innuendo and fact. >> the tape, of course, raises new legal issues in the cohen investigation and particularly raises issues for the u.s. president. lets bring in cnn legal analyst areva martin. thank you for being with us. from what we know ab this tape, does it hurt the president? one of his lawyers, rudy guiliani says, it wont. has he explained that? >> well, one thing we know for sure is that the president lied t...

And we did not publish it and we want her to be a columnist. if they were discussing giving a payment to karen mcdougal, thats pretty stunning. i understand why he would call back then. no, that was not what that was everyone though what i said it was. it was buying the rights to the story. it does not make any sense. donald trump is not a publisher. >> it lasted one or two addition and this would not exist anymore. >> the extinction in the explanation has a legal one as opposed to the personal ...

Going to be a very big factor in showing that indeed it was for the purpose of influence of the election and not just to spare his family or his wife, you know, the embarrassment about the affair, because the proximity, what distinguished it from the john edwards case that a lot of people knew about that prosecution did not turn up a conviction, but i think here you have some very distinguishing facts, including the fact its so close to the election. its really for that purpose. so i think there...

Right for stories. that can be problematic for ami. thats for this example. stormy daniels is a much more example of cohen paying money in an effort to influence campaign and pretty clearly acting as someone who had ties to the campaign. >> the point that you write is the $150,000 to buy the story from mcdougal would likely be considered in awe kind contribution. that is specifically what would violate a campaign finance law there. so what do we know about the current status the relationship bet...

Story, then it is your story, and you can make sure it never gets out. this is one explanation. but ultimately, the rights were made by ami, and they never ran the story and if not for the story of the journal, we wouldnt have known before election day that this allegation existed. and now we are learning more of the story today. >> good work from you and your colleagues on the reporting on this. from the "new york times." i am joined by legal contributor, barbara mcquad. and juliet sorensen. ...

This, but who stands to benefit from this revelation? >> it is interesting when you look at this conversation and what we learned about this conversation from the reporting of my colleagues and others. it looks like mainly it sheds more light on michael cohens thinking at the time from what we have seen in the recording there is not much here in terms of new revelations about what the president said, but one thing that stands out here that is interesting is that what this recording shows is that...

Havent wavered from their support of the president based on his affairs of other women, or the idea of stormy daniels or karen mcdougal. none of this has hit him and hurt his support among supporters as well as among evangelical voters looking at the supreme court and saying they want a pro-life judge there and they are concerned with the presidents morality. >> phil, you wrote a pretty good article here. i love the way you broke it down on things we do know and dont know and why they are import...

Misdeeds of the president than anyone else. >> joining my is host of podcast woke af. good morning to the three of you, rick to you first here, you have rudy giuliani confirming that yes, the tape exists, but the payment was ultimately never made. so give me the political fallout implications of all of this for the president. any risk here? >> i dont really know that there is a lot. we have not learned much. the wall street journal contradicts what giuliani 15id. i think the journal is sticking ...

The, you know, in the runup to the 2016 election to keep the stories quiet. and this is the perfect storm confluence of those two requests. here you have donald trump and michael cohen talking about payments to a woman who claimed an affair and trying to keep that story quiet. i think that super important to the fbis investigation about campaign finance because if this was ultimately about the campaign, if they said on the tape, and we dont know this, they said on the tape it is really important...

And to make that a criminal offense, you have to -- it has to be knowing and willful and a tape could get you there. >> so, paul, i spoke with former u.s. attorney mema rocca today and here is what she said about karen mcdougal. take a listen to this. >> -- campaign finance possible violation and also possible fraud charges with respect to karen mcdougal in particular. if she was deceived into what she was thinking she was signing, getting into with ami, and this was done over the wires or over ...