That he didnt know anything about any payment. There are legal questions here about Campaign Finance violations and then there are simple questions about whether the president lied to the American People. Did he lie when he said he didnt know about the payments to Michael Cohen. Questions about that. Also questions about what Rudy Giuliani says about the issue of obstruction of justice and why the president fired james comey. Much more on that in a minute. First, m. J. Lee following every detail of these new arguments on the Stormy Daniels case. For months the white house has been trying to wave everyone away from the Stormy Daniels story, saying the affair never happened, they didnt know about this payment, and that donald trump denies all of the allegations related to Stormy Daniels. Rudy giuliani changed all of that last night in just one interview. He unexpectedly revealed that Michael Cohen was paid back by donald trump for the 130,000 payment that cohen made to Stormy Daniels. And he said that this was not a campaign violation. Here is giuliani talking about why he did not violate any laws. They funneled it through the law firm. Funneled through the law firm and the president repaid it. I didnt know he did. There is no Campaign Finance law. Zero. The reason this was so staggering is because donald trump, remember, was asked about the payment on air force one last month and he said he didnt know anything about this. Let me just remind you, this is what he said last month. Reporte do you know about the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels . Then why did Michael Cohen make it if there was no truth you have to ask michael. Michael is my attorney and youll have to ask michael. Do you know where he got the money . No, i dont know. So the legal explanation that giuliani seems to be making is that donald trump personally paid back Michael Cohen, there were no third parties involved because, keep in mind, candidates can donate to their own campaigns. Now, the thing that i should mention is that Michael Cohen had this very carefully worded statement back in february. Let me just read what he said back then. Neither the trump organization, nor the Trump Campaign, was a party to the transaction with miss clifford and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly. Now, the important thing about this statement is that it does not mention that donald trump didnt reimburse Michael Cohen and now it seems like that was certainly not a mistake. M. J. Lee, great to have you with us. Thank you very much. Joining us now, cnn chief legal analyst, former federal prosecutor jeffrey toobin. If we can, we want to put pause on the question about whether the president , the white house, Michael Cohen and others have been honest about this over the last six or seven months. They havent been completely honest about this. Well talk much more about that in a second. But lets discuss the legal implications of Rudy Giulianis argument here, which is, number one, he is suggesting, well, i dont know if the president knew about the payments at the time, but he paid Michael Cohen back for them and they were personal. So if you take that linear argument, if there was one there, how does it help the president. Well, there are two issues here. One is when a candidate gives money to his own campaign, which hes certainly permitted to do, he has to report it. The other issue is if someone else gives money to the campaign, there are both financial limits and reporting obligations. What giuliani appears to be saying is that these both Michael Cohens payment and the president s reimbursement of him were completely outside the Campaign Finance system. Had nothing to do with the campaign. These were personal expenditures and a personal reimbursement, and so there were no reporting obligations in connection with these expenditures. That appears to be the argument. Whether it is a valid argument is a separate question. But on that point, jeffrey toobin, this morning, giuliani went back on fox and seemed to very clearly state that this was done to help the campaign, to help the president win the presidency. Here is giuliani. Youre saying that Stephanie Clifford made the allegations, told Donald Trumps lawyer, look and deny them. And said it wasnt true. However, imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton. To make it go away, they made this cohen didnt even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job. Right . I hadnt heard that clip before. I mean, thats a confession. Right . Thats a confession that this is a Campaign Finance violation because they wanted to shut her up in october of 2016. So then what . Thats why the payment was made then. Which is it was obvious to all of us, but now you have the president s lawyer confessing that this was a payment for the benefit of the campaign. I was asking earlier, so then what . If it is Campaign Finance rye la violation, is that a misdemean, a felony, what is it . It depends on the level of intent. The most fec, federal Election Commission violations are handled civilly. But if it is willful, if it is intentional, it can be handled criminally. That is how it works. So, jeffrey, based on this, you know, bombshell we just played for you, this new surprise we provided for you this morning, take that in conjunction with Rudy Giuliani, how would you assess his legal performance over the last 24 hours . Well, i think the background to this appears to be they know Michael Cohens office was searched. They figured that the fbi found the financial records which explained the fact that cohen and everybody has been lying about the Stormy Daniels payment and the president s reimbursement. So they had to come up with some explanation and so the president so giuliani came up with that explanation this morning. But the other things he said, i think it is it sounds look a pretty boeing ogus explanation, the other stuff sounds like mindless riffing about his explaining about the new explanation for why he fired comey, which sounds to me like a confession of obstruction of justice. This explanation for the timing of the comey of the Stormy Daniels payment sounds like a confession to Campaign Finance violation. So it is not an impressive performance so far by the former. Stick with us. We havent gotten into what you just brought up, which is the obstruction of justice potential issue here with the comey firing, what giuliani said. Stay with us. Lets bring in our political commentator, Patty Solis Doyle and congressman jack kingston. Congressman kingston, let me begin with you. As someone out on the campaign a lot, supporting the president , been a very vocal supporter of him, how does this sit with you now that giuliani is saying, yeah, the president paid off this hush money when the president said to us that he didnt . Well, i think i really regret Rudy Giuliani using the word funnel, but aside from that, Michael Cohen was not involved in the campaign. He worked for the trump organization, which was a separate entity. He was on a retainer, 35,000 a month. Within that retainer he could pay expenses of the client and it would be normal that even though hes not involved with the campaign, that if he sees a problem that he needs it needs to go away. That he would address that and it would not one problem with that. Is that according to the reporting done since Rudy Giuliani said this, the payments didnt start until it is a post facto detainer on this subject, correct . That is correct. I think that has to be explained. If im a candidate and i had a problem, you know, rl estate tax or some issue as a real estate landlord and i had a lawyer who was handling it for me, it is not good for me publicly for that to come out that i did something that wasnt correct ain business. It would be an embarrassment to me as a candidate. But it is not necessarily a campaign function when that lawyer steps in and takes care of it for me. Patty, how do you see it . I see it this way. I think the president of the United States is a liar. Many of the people who work for him are liars. They lie to the American People. They lie to investigators. They probably lie to each other. They lie about small things, like, crowd size, they lie about big things like 3 Million People voting illegally. And now theyre lying about grave and criminal things like collusion with a foreign hostile government, and obstruction of justice and hush money and fec violations. And i dont know about you, jack, but im getting sick and tired of being lied to. I can only imagine how you as a supporter and someone who voted for him can feel. I dont know how you survived the Clinton Organization then, but let me say this, the question at hand is about rudy going public and one of the things that i think was interesting, john and poppy, is that he actually i think sent a signal to mueller. He said i believe mueller is a good man, he was a patriot. If they are objective, we can come to some agreement. I actually think that beyond all the comey and the accusations and Michael Cohen stuff, that there was a signal there that rudy was delivering a message. Why else would he go on publicly as he did. Well talk about Rudy Giuliani and the Mueller Investigation in a minute. When pressed on the president s changing stories, on the Stormy Daniels payment, because on air force one, the president said he didnt know anything about the payment. On the issue of why this story changed, Rudy Giuliani says it is not an issue. Congressman, how can being straight with the American People be not an issue . I think the president has i think rudy should clarify that the president , in fact, was paying this 35,000 retainer to Michael Cohen for noncampaign expenses, and within that, thats how cohen started negotiating this. And that that retainer continued to go. My question was about honesty in this case, not about thats what im saying. That rudy needs to get out and say, heres why the president has been truthful about this. Ino, no, no. What john is asking, why is honesty not seemingly an issue to Rudy Giuliani . He says it doesnt really matter that was the story now. What matters is that this is how the payment happened. Doesnt honesty matter . Doesnt having a straight story matter . It does and i think that there is two Different Levels here. One is his lawyer saying things on tv, they believe thats a freebie, doesnt count in a court of law. But i think in terms of the contract as a politician with your voters is that when youre asked a question, regardless of the circumstances, you should give a straight answer and so i think they have to explain why the president wasnt lying here. Patty, well give you a chance to respond to this in a moment. A lot more to discuss. Rudy giulianis new explanation for why the president fired james comey, could that cause new problems for the president. Plus, after being interviewed by the special counsels team, a former Campaign Aide now says it is clear the investigation is, quote, all about collusion. And will three americans detained in north korea be free today . The president s lawyer Rudy Giuliani says, yes, the white house, though, what does the white house say . Thats next. Theres nothing small about your business. 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He was saying he had not said that trump was not a target of the investigation, of course, we know that james comey has said he told the president he wasnt the subject of the investigation. But trump wanted him to make a Public Statement about it, which james comey would not do. Of course, the white house is reason for why they fired james comey, has changed drastic a little several times because if you remember back last may, almost a year ago, right after they fired james comey they maintained for 48 hours it was because of the recommendation from the attorney and the Deputy Attorney general for the way that comey handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the president blew that excuse out of the water when two days later he told lester holt this we had a very nice dinner. And at that time he told me you are not under investigation. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when i decided to just do it i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story, it is an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election. So there are the president s own words. But that was a year ago. Now we should note what the president said less than a month ago on twitter when he wrote he did not fire james comey because of the russia investigation, saying there was no collusion, no obstruction of justice, saying slippery james comey, the worst fbi director in history was not fired because of the phony russia investigation, where, by the way, there was no collusion. So i guess, john and poppy, the reason james comey was fired depends on which donald trump you ask on which day of the week. Clearly a lot of confusion. I should note one more thing that Rudy Giuliani said last night, the president said after he fired james comey, im free of this guy. Kaitlan collins at the white house, thank you very much. I want to bring back our panel. The president said yes, the story changed on why he fired james comey. Lets take the latest explanation from Rudy Giuliani, it may be the most problematic because the president s lawyer now says that the fbi director was fired because he wouldnt publicly exonerate him. Does that help the obstruction case . It hurts donald trump. And helps Robert Mueller proving corrupt intent. This is the court issue with the obstruction of justice investigation. It is quite clear that the president has