Good evening, im ali velshi sitting in for lawrence odonnell. We have a very good last word for you. Trumps tangled web. From russia collusion, to the president s tortured relationship with the truth. Well look at it all over the course of this hour. The day began as a growing web of deceit between president and shifting stories between the president and Rudy Giuliani to clean up Rudy Giulianis nowinfamous fox news appearances. Youll remember he revealed that the president reimbursed Michael Cohen for the 130,000 Hush Money Payment. There are new details that just broke within the last half an hour about when the president learned of that payment to Stormy Daniels. According to the New York TimesPresident Trump knew about a sixfigure payment that michael d. Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a Pornographic Film Actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in april, according to two people familiar with the
arrangement. The times reports it is not immediately clear exactly when the president learned of the payment that Michael Cohen made in october of 2016. But, quote, three people close to the matter said mr. Trump knew mr. Cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from coming public at the time the president denied it. Also breaking, new developments from the Wall Street Journal about Michael Cohens growing access to cash during the president ial campaign. The journal reports, Michael Cohen gained access to as much as 774,000 through two Financial Transactions during the campaign as he sought to fix problems for his boss, public records show. Those transactions could factor into a broad investigation of mr. Cohens Business Affairs being conducted by manhattan federal prosecutors and the federal bureau of investigation. According to the Wall Street Journal, in february of 2016,
cohen nearly doubled the amount he could use on a bank credit lined tied to his manhattan apartment. Increasing his ability to borrow by 245,000, three months earlier he gained access to another 529,000 through a new mortgage that he and his wife cosigned on a condominium owned by her parents at trump world tower. It isnt clear whether Michael Cohen used these sources of cash to settle problems for trump. But sources tell the Wall Street Journal federal prosecutors and the fbi are examining whether Michael Cohen committed bank fraud by making false statements, inflating the value of his assets to obtain loans or misstating the purpose of his loan. Michael cohen said he used his home equity line of credit to make the 130,000 Hush Money Payment to Stormy Daniels. In an interview with theWashington Post this week, Rudy Giuliani said the president had reimbursed Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment and indicated that trump had reimbursed cohen for other matters as well. Quote, he was paid by Donald Trumps personal funds and he was paid out of personal funds which covered that and possibly a few other things, you know, would be considered incidental. The repayments took place over a period of time, probably in 2017, probably all paid back by the end of 2017, that and probably a few other situations that might have been considered campaign expenses. Giuliani also said this week that cohen resolved other problems similarly for trump. He didnt specify what they were or the source of funds that were used. Joining us is one of the Wall Street Journal reporters who broke tonights story, Michael Rothfeld, thank you for being it us. Thank you for your reporting on this. Whats the implication here. Michael cohen ended up taking 774,000 combined in home equity
loans in the month before the election . Thats right, ali. So the question is, what prosecutors are looking at is whether any laws are broken in terms of how Michael Cohen may have gotten access to cash during this period to use to help solve problems for President Trump to keep things quiet, such as the Stormy Daniels payment. Or were any misrepresentations made, as you said, in his in his applications to banks or statements to banks or in terms of what kind of Campaign Finance laws may have been violated. What we found was that well, first of all in november 2015, Michael Cohens inlaws refinanced an apartment and took 529,000 out of the equity from the apartment. And he cosigned the loan for that. Slush fund that might have been used to fix problems . Yes, rudy said Stormy Daniels wasnt the only thing he solved for President Trump, there were a few other things he got repaid for after the election through a retainer, 35,000 a month. So the information is conflicting and people are changing their stories but by and by, as the federal investigation is going on, we are learning more about what happened, and i think within some short period of time we probably will find out even a lot more about what actually happened. Thanks for your reporting, Michael Rothfeld from the Wall Street Journal. The Breaking News keeps coming. The Washington Post just posted a new story, giuliani tries to clarify repayment to Stormy Daniels. In it the times reports that after Rudy Giulianis media tour this week, some trump advisers said they fear that giuliani may have waived his right to assert that his conversations with the
president are private, and that government or private lawyers pursuing lawsuits could now seek to interview him. Joining us are Jonathan Alter political analyst and columnist for the daily beast. Keira raumman, boston globe, the point for federal studies. And jennifer rodgers, Executive Director of the center for advancement of Public Integrity for columbia high school. Thanks to all of you. A lot to digest. Jennifer, let me start with you. Going back to Michael Cohen may be establishing a slush fund or bringing in money he may have used to pay things off for donald trump, in the state of new york thats not actually legal. Lawyers cant go around settling things for clients with their own personal money. Its not a crime but its an ethical violation. If youre a lawyer in new york state, youll get in trouble with the bar for doing that sort of thing, its clearly prohibited. Thats a problem for Michael Cohen to the extent his law practice goes. You and i were talking about this beforehand. A lot of this stuff starts to weave itself into a narrative that a lot of people already believe. There are a lot of people dont believe donald trump could not have known. This guys a skinflint of legendary note. He didnt pay people small amounts of money, theres no real way hundreds of thousands of dollars could be paid on his behalf without him knowing. Youre right. And we have this week confirmation of things that many people already believe to be true. Looking back a week ago. We have the forbes 400 saying donald trump inflated his wealth wildly, pretended to be worth 500 million when he was only worth about 5 million. We have his doctor saying, i never wrote that letter saying he would be the most healthy person to serve as president , trump dictated me. We knew that by the tone of what it said. And now we have giuliani saying the president knew and he paid that back which is contrary to what the president said before, just last month, and then he
confirmed it on twitter yesterday, appeared to walk it back today. But you have a situation where your credibility is lost if youre constantly changing your story. What is this about, jonathan, its chaos, but the whole thing is perplexing. Giuliani was brought in, in theory not just as a political adviser, but to be the president s lawyer, to try and bring some resolution to this issue of whether the president is going to sit down with Robert Mueller or be subpoenaed to talk to Robert Mueller. This doesnt look like the way you solve a problem. To say that Rudy Giuliani is rusty would be underestimating the situation. He hasnt been a prosecutor in more than 30 years. Hes been in politics and he has really no experience with this kind of White Collar Defense at this level and showed it in the first couple of days and ticked off his client as you can tell from the president s comments. Whats concerning to me is when people say, oh, im not
surprised, i knew that about trump, i knew he wrote that letter for the doctor, i knew he grossly inflated his wealth, i knew he was a liar about Stormy Daniels it has the net effect of normalizing trump, which has been the great challenge is to not just take it for granted that the president of the United States is a confirmed liar. That shouldnt be a dog bites man story. Right. We should continue to have a sense of outrage about this, but sustaining that outrage over a fouryear period is going to be very hard. I want to remind everybody that after Everything Indira laid out about what donald trump said and Rudy Giuliani said, trump this morning said to reporters that giuliani needs to get his facts straight. Lets listen to this in the president s words. Ill tell you what, rudy is a great guy but he just started a day ago. But he really has his heart into it, hes working hard, hes learning the subject matter. And hes going to be issuing a statement, too, but he is a great guy. He started yesterday. Hell get his facts straight. Hes a great guy. I will tell you this, i will tell you this, when rudy made the statement, rudys great, but rudy had just started and he wasnt totally familiar with everything. And as the president said, Rudy Giuliani did release a statement this afternoon. Heres part of it. The part about the campaign and the funds. He said, first, there is no Campaign Violation the payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president s family. It would not have been done in any event goof been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not. Second, my references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters. Rudy giuliani in the same
interview in which he said this wasnt a Campaign Violation said, can you imagine if this had come out right before the election . The implication again to what everybody else in the country thinks Rudy Giuliani said that was the case. Now hes walking that back. If youre a prosecutor in this thing, this is too easy. Its interesting. So if the prosecutors are looking into this, if they want to make this Campaign Violation count, they will look at these things, they will have them in the arsenal for inconsistent statements and so on and they know what the defense is going to be. What theyre going to do is make the case with the facts, not all these statements. Look at exactly what happened, how the money was obtain the, who paid whom when, who knew what based on communications among the witnesses. They dont build this case with nonsense of the back and forth going around and they have these to have a little fun with. With the inconsistencies. Michael avenatti, this is a civil case, but hes having some fun with it. Oh, for sure. Hes enjoying the fact that everybody who needles either Rudy Giuliani or the president gets something out of it. I talked to Michael Avenatti today about this, and the thing that you have behind you, trumps tangled web is, of course, a reference to him quoting Sir Walter Scott on twitter saying what a tangled web we weave. He is saying this is about deception. He said he and his client, Stormy Daniels are leaning back and enjoying this. They describe giuliani as dazed and confused, and the deeper they go into it, the better it makes ms. Daniels case or ms. Stephanie clifford, her real name. Its not just the potential Campaign Finance violations, potential ethics violations. Its also potential false statements and potential obstruction of justice. Lets not forget one of the most important things Rudy Giuliani said in that sean hannity interview, he said the president fired james comey because he refused to say that trump was not the target of the
investigation. Right. That goes right back to obstruction of justice. The latter part of that line oh what a tangled web we weave is, when we practice to deceive. These guys arent practicing much. It seems more like the keystone kops, except its the keystone kriminals. They didnt get the memo on how to lie. So this is what weve seen unfold this week. They also had some very good news this week. Theres a judge in the Paul Manafort case, judge ellis, who essentially Rebuked Mueller and his team and said they were out to hurt the president. We dont know whether thats an indication which way hell of which way hell move, whether he might throw the case out or do Something Else that would be unfavorable to the government. This is a story thats not going to be all bad news for the president. He had good polls too. Ill talk about that a bit. He was very quick to quote judge ellis when he got to the nra. This all happened early this morning. I wanted to go back to you jennifer, on the legality of it. It doesnt seem like theyve all practiced it. Giuliani overnight to nbc news described his conversation with donald trump about the cohen reimbursements, i dont know why hes talking about this stuff to the news media, in an interview with nbc news giuliani insisted he only shared the details to daniels of the payment to daniels with trump about a week ago. I dont think the president realized he paid him back for that specific thing until we his legal team made him aware of the paperwork. He said the president responded oh, my goodness thats what it was for. Oh my goodness doesnt sound like the president to me. Maybe rudy is paraphrasing. Why are we hearing these conversations . Nowadays lawyers play multiple roles. Theyre often pr people, spokespeople, the rest of it. Just because youre sharing a conversation with your client doesnt mean youre waiving privilege for all reasons. It may be something they decided the lawyer is going to be the spokesperson, there are good reasons for not having the client speak all the time. It doesnt mean that privilege is waived but why they decided as a strategic matter that these are things that should shared is beyond me. To jonathans point it doesnt seem to be in order. The narrative is not clear. It seems to change so much. Its very incoherent. Its not the Communications Strategy you would want. Part of me wonders whether thats the goal. Thanks s ts to you guys, stick around. I want to bring in Washington Post editor ruth marcus and our msnbc contributors. Thank you, ruth. Ruth, what do you make of these developments. The idea that Rudy Giuliani has put on the table for scrutiny exactly how this all went down between the president , Michael Cohen, and Stormy Daniels. I dont know that he helped the president s cause much. Thats a very restrained way of describing the premiere of the giuliani story. I mean, when the president is out there cleaning up after his lawyer, that kind of has things a little bit backwards. I think theres two different questions here. One is the Public Relations aspect to the question and one is the legal aspect. As a Public Relations matter, these constantly shifting stories and unraveling tales and the New York Times story that says the president had known for months about the payment to Stormy Daniels, duh its a great story, congratulations to my friends at the New York Times but thats the only narrative that really makes any sense. But question whether people in the public who arent already completely exasperated with the president s re