this is at worst, at worst a civil violation. i don t even think it is bad. me running for office, i can donate to my campaign unlimited sums. i would have to report it but this is debatable if this was even a campaign payment. why? richard is trying to debate at right here. let s be honest. you have no idea why donald trump paid this money. you can speculate. you can say he wanted to spare embarrassment. you don t know that. these same people who would buy the fact that donald trump meant to say would or wouldn t do vladimir putin would believe the notion that on october 25, he paid off stormy daniels from something ten years ago having nothing to do with the presidential campaign. that same person would believe that. nobody else in the country would. i didn t is stormy daniels russian or kremlin connected? do you have information we
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. and costa said, do you know how those payments were struktdured in 2017? giuliani said, don t know, don t know. actual, i think they probably in 2018, they were paid in the personal funds because they never considered this a campaign payment. this was considered more a harassment case. what does the timing of the reimbursements say to you? i don t think the timing of the reimbursements matter. and let me say this, don, i think if you look at timing of cohen and the wall street journal article where he said he facilitated the payment, used this word facilitated. he also said at no point in time was he reimbursed by the campaign or trump organization. so the first time i saw this
lawyering. we ll talk about that and talk about the campaign finance implications more because that continues to be an issue. even if you accept argument that it was a personal payment and not a campaign payment, there might be a separate issue here. sarah sanders was asked about this in the briefing. let s listen. did the president file a fraudulent personal financial disclosure last year when he filed a report that did not include a loan from michael cohen or any company affiliated with him? there was no loan, then what would he have been reimbursing? i don t know. you would have to talk to the president s outside counsel. so the ethics in government act 1978 requires you file liabilities, disclose liabilities of more than $10,000. this is a $130,000 liability the president apparently had to his lawyer, michael cohen, yet he did not disclose that on his disclosure. is that a problem, asha? yes, that can be a problem. as you mentioned, quite apart from the campaign finance v
attorney before television, and his point is that rudy loves being the center of attention on tv. and after he left the mayoralty, he was in the vast waste land. now he s been called back from oblivion and he relished going on the hannity program and he let his mouth get away from him. i think this will help everyone make the point. because he rudy giuliani told the washington post that he paid cohen with his personal funds because they never considered this a campaign payment. but he also said this. watch this. imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016 in the middle of the last debate with hillary clinton. right, so to make it go away cohen didn t even ask. cohen made it go away. he did his job. okay. case closed. so to make it go away, fwauz the campaign was going impacted.
on the hannity program and he let his mouth get away from him. i don t think there s any grand strategy there. i think this will help everyone make the point. because he rudy giuliani told the washington post that he paid cohen with his personal funds because they never considered this a campaign payment. but he also said this. watch this. imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016 in the middle of the last debate with hillary clinton. right, so to make it go away they made this payment? cohen didn t even ask. cohen made it go away. he did his job. okay. case closed. so to make it go away because the campaign was going to be impacted, we decided to help the campaign by giving it a $130,000 benefit. that s called a contribution. that s called one you make to donate to a campaign. that statement, even if he had the discombobulation, you made your case even stronger by talking about it being a campaign issue. go ahead, jim.