Media declare Trump a liar after Giuliani explains Stormy Daniels payoff

“After weeks of [White House] and Trump insisting he knew nothing about Stormy Daniels payment, Trump admits to have deceived the public — and claims such agreements are common among wealthy people,” CNN reporter Manu Raju said on Twitter. “But why payoff someone for something that didn’t happen? Many women made allegations in 2016.”

Jack Holmes, a writer for Esquire magazine, tweeted, “The president knew what was true but said the opposite. This is known as a lie.”

Fox Business personality Charlie Gasparino wrote, “As someone who remembers [Moncia] Lewinski, Trump’s Stormy Daniels’ lie is on par w[ith] Clinton’s but that might be the central problem.”

Scott Dworkin, a liberal commentator on MSNBC, also said Trump had “lied” in his past public comments about the payments to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.

At issue is Trump’s consistent denial that he was directly involved with the payments made ahead of the 2016 election to Daniels, who alleged that she had an affair with Trump, which he denies. But Giuliani did not necessarily contradict the White House or Trump in his Fox interview, and said that while the reimbursement was made, Trump had no knowledge of what he was reimbursing until about 10 days ago, in late April.

Giuliani only allowed that Trump had a financial arrangement with Cohen wherein he paid him a type of retainer fee plus reimbursement for any expenses he incurred on Trump’s behalf.

“The president repaid it,’’ Guiliani said, referring to a $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels in exchange for her silence about the alleged affair. Giuliani said Thursday morning that was a relatively “cheap” payment to keep Daniels from telling “false” stories about the affair that even she has denied took place.

Giuliani added that Trump “didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this with my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”

Trump was asked on April 5 aboard Air Force One if he knew of the payment to Cohen. He flatly said he did not. And then asked why Cohen had in fact made the payment, however, Trump said, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”

In a separate interview with the Washington Post, Giuliani said, “There probably were other things of a personal nature that Michael took care of for which the president would have always trusted him as his lawyer … and that was paid back out of the rest of the money, and Michael earned a fee out of it.”

Trump in a series of tweets on Thursday morning, maintained that he did not have an affair with Daniels, which allegedly took place in 2006, though he acknowledged the payments.

“Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA,” he said. “These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.”