{"id":272899,"date":"2018-05-03T16:10:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T20:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=272899"},"modified":"2018-05-04T16:56:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T20:56:55","slug":"rudy-brought-cohen-payment-stormy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/05\/03\/rudy-brought-cohen-payment-stormy\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Rudy Brought Up the Cohen Payment to Stormy"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Moving on now to the Rudy interview on Fox last night. And, as I say, I got home and emails: Did you write whatever people were saying?<\/a> I didn\u2019t know what it was about. I do now, obviously.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So Rudy interview with Hannity<\/a>. The takeaway from the Rudy interview is that somehow Rudy really stepped in it by acknowledging that Trump was aware of the $130,000 payment to Stormy when Trump had said that he wasn\u2019t. There\u2019s no doubt in my mind why Rudy did this. Rudy Giuliani is not stupid. Don\u2019t forget, there was a raid of Cohen\u2019s office. And if Trump and Rudy figure something was procured during the raid and they know what it is, they\u2019re gonna get out in front of it or try to get out in front of it.<\/p>\n

What this is all gonna boil down to once again is was this payment that Cohen made to the porn star, was it actually to help Trump win the presidency, or was it essentially to protect Trump\u2019s marriage? And if it was made to protect Trump\u2019s marriage, there\u2019s nothing illegal about this, it doesn\u2019t even involve the campaign. And everybody I\u2019ve spoken to today says it would be practically impossible to actually get a conviction anywhere on this payment having anything to do with violating campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n

But you see the law doesn\u2019t matter. We\u2019re now in the court of public opinion. The effort here is to designed to convince low-information voters, potential jurors, whoever, that Trump broke campaign finance laws and that Rudy just admitted it. So that\u2019s what they\u2019re all focused on now. Of everything said by Caputo, everything said by Rudy, that\u2019s all the Drive-Bys are focused on today.<\/p>\n

And in fact, I just got a late-arriving sound bite here, and it\u2019s No. 25. Just happened on CNN. Dana Bash asking former Bill Clinton investigation deputy independent counsel Solomon Wisenberg about Rudy\u2019s statements last night that Trump reimbursed Cohen in the Stormy Daniels case. Dana Bash says, “What do you make of Giuliani\u2019s legal strategy here?”<\/p>\n

\"\"WISENBERG: Metaphorically murdered the president and committed suicide with respect to his own reputation. It was an incredibly embarrassing interview. Look. When you\u2019re representing anybody, much less the president of the United States, you have to know that when you go on television and you make statements on his behalf, that\u2019s admissible in court. It does not matter who makes the payment under campaign finance law. The key is the purpose. If it\u2019s the purpose to influence a political campaign, it must be reported. Reporting is a key here.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. So you see where they think this is headed or where they think they can take it. “This payment was designed to help Trump win the election. This was designed to keep bad news away so Trump wouldn\u2019t be negatively impacted by it in his desire to win the presidency.” But what if the payment had nothing to do with that? What if the payment was simply to keep peace at home and it has nothing to do with the campaign? And they\u2019re gonna have a hell of a time proving that this had any kind of a political connotation to it.<\/p>\n

Now, Rudy going on TV and talking about this, again, remember, Cohen\u2019s office has been raided. The Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney has everything that Cohen had. They know. Rudy and Trump and everybody else on Trump\u2019s team know. So I think this is an effort to get out in front of things. How many times have they thought they had Trump now? And they think they\u2019ve got Trump again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now they\u2019ve got Rudy \u2019cause Rudy has committed suicide and murder. Rudy murdered Trump last night and then killed himself in one interview. They think Rudy made a mistake. But Rudy is just trying to speed the process up. So let\u2019s make some assumptions. Let us assume that Trump\u2019s lawyer, Cohen, did take out a loan to pay Stormy Daniels, the porn star, and Cohen has said that he had to take out a loan. And he further said that Trump\u2019s personal bank account was the source of him being reimbursed for that loan.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the scenario, then I\u2019m telling you, it is going to be very hard to call that a campaign expense. Cohen could say, “To hell with that. I\u2019m trying to save the guy\u2019s marriage. I\u2019m trying to keep this out of the news. I\u2019m trying to save his marriage. You got somebody out there smearing him with a lie like this about an affair that didn\u2019t happen. I\u2019m just trying to keep the peace. We got a whole lot of things going on out there. This had nothing to do with the campaign.” I\u2019m sure that whatever the Feds got in their raid, they\u2019ve got a version of this story that they want to tell themselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"There\u2019s a parallel to this, and that\u2019s the John Edwards case when the Drive-Bys knew that he was flitting around, had an affair and a child out of wedlock while his wife was sick, the Drive-Bys knew the story, ignored it. The National Enquirer is the only outfit that published it and they dragged the Drive-By Media in later with them. But back then, John Edwards, they tried to say that the payments he was making to this mistress were a campaign finance violation, and they tried to get him convicted on that. They couldn\u2019t. Edwards was found guilty on other things, but not that.<\/p>\n

Now, Trump has then tweeted: “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.”<\/p>\n

What Trump is saying: “I paid the guy retainer and then every month I send him some money and out of that pile I send him he decides to make some expenditures. I don\u2019t know about some of them. Some of them I do. I pay a lot of lawyers to do a lot of things. And my lawyer has a trust account where I got money in there that\u2019s for various legal purposes that might arise.” And Trump is saying that\u2019s what happened here. It had nothing to do with the campaign. But the media is going to try to make the exact opposite point. In fact, that\u2019s all they\u2019ve been trying to do since last night.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. Here you go. NBC News is the source here. “Feds Tapped Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen\u2019s Phones<\/a> — At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, a source said. Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.<\/p>\n

“It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen\u2019s offices, hotel room,” bathrooms, wherever else they raided. “At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said.”<\/p>\n

Now, folks, I want to call your attention once again to the story from Mollie Hemingway today. “Manafort lawyers claim the Mueller investigation has provided no evidence of contacts with Russian officials — In a new filing demanding a full hearing on what Paul Manafort\u2019s lawyers say is a series of illegal governmental leaks about his case, his legal team also reveals the government has provided no evidence of any contact between Manafort and Russian officials.”<\/p>\n

\"\"In fact, Mueller\u2019s office says it has no evidence in its possession responsive to the request from Manafort\u2019s lawyers for transcripts, notes, or tapes of anything to do with Manafort dealing or talking with Russians. However, throughout the past year, NBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN have all run stories claiming the special counsel has evidence of Manafort being in contact with and discussing things with Russian government officials.<\/p>\n

But today or yesterday, the special counsel\u2019s office, “No, we don\u2019t have anything, when they were specifically asked for it by Manafort\u2019s lawyers.” So what it means is that somebody in the special counsel\u2019s office has been lying. Have been lying to the media, have been leaking to the media for the past year that Manafort, that they have evidence that Manafort has been communicating with Russians.<\/p>\n

Now, my point here is there\u2019s a whole lot of lying going on on the Mueller side of things, a whole lot of lying going on on the investigation side of things, and these lies are leaks. So now we have a story from NBC, a couple of anonymous sources, “Oh, yeah, there was a wiretap of Cohen, and we nailed Cohen calling the White House.”<\/p>\n

The wise thing to do, based on intelligence guided by experience is to simply not believe most of what you hear for the first time in, quote, unquote, the news. There have been so many lies that have been leaked about Trump and Russia and collusion for two years now, and there has never been any evidence produced that confirms these leaks.<\/p>\n

Well, you know the drill by now. There isn\u2019t any collusion except between Hillary, her campaign, the DNC, and the Russians. But the point is, the media is filled with out-and-out lies, purposeful lies that are leaked that are designed to shape public opinion and maybe down the road shape the opinion of people who might end up on a grand jury or a trial jury. They\u2019re just openly lying. They\u2019re just openly making things up.<\/p>\n

So now the big news, “Oh, my God. We got a wiretap. Cohen called the White House.” Now everybody\u2019s gonna be beating down the door trying to find out what\u2019s on that call. Was Cohen calling Trump to talk about Stormy? Or whatever else they want to make up now. It\u2019s a sad state of affairs when the gut reaction to any news story today has to be, “I don\u2019t believe it.” But that would be the wisest thing all of us could do, is simply reject it.<\/p>\n

If it comes to the New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, just reject it. If it\u2019s true, there be plenty of time for that to be demonstrated. But don\u2019t let them have your mind and don\u2019t let them have your opinion right off the box. Make \u2019em work for it. Because as things stand now, they don\u2019t have 90% of what they\u2019ve claimed they\u2019ve got. It may be more than that they don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Rudy appeared last night on the Fox News Channel with Sean Hannity and other interviews later this morning back on Fox with some other people. And the reaction to Rudy, in particular his explanation of the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, a couple people, I think more than a couple, think that Rudy stepped in it here. That Rudy has unknowingly just destroyed Trump here, just nailed Trump to the wall on an illegal campaign donation or some other violation of federal election campaign finance law.<\/p>\n

I have a different take on this. And it\u2019s all predicated on the fact that Rudy and Trump both know that Cohen\u2019s office had been raided. Now we\u2019re told that Cohen\u2019s phone calls and his phone lines had been tapped. And so they have to believe, they have to operate on the assumption that the Feds know what Cohen did and why and when and so forth, and so there would be no sense now in telling anything at variance with that, in an effort to get in front of it, in an effort to kind of negate it or nullify it.<\/p>\n