Giuliani Says Other Women May Have Been Paid Hush Money, Trump Should Defy Mueller’s Subpoena

Less than one week after contradicting President Donald Trump’s statements on payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, Rudy Giuliani  made yet more statements bold declarations over the weekend.

Rudy Giuliani Says Trump Should Defy Russia Probe Subpoenas

The former New York mayor — who is now a member of Trump’s legal team — said he believes the president’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen may have also paid other women with whom Trump had extramarital affairs.

“I have no knowledge of that,” Mr. Giuliani said in an interview on ABC’s This Week when asked about payments to other women, “but I would think if it was necessary, yes.”

Giuliani also said he believes Trump may plead the Fifth Amendment in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation so as to avoid incriminating himself. Many reports have explained that taking the Fifth suggests Trump does in fact have things to hide, despite his remarks to the contrary.

“We don’t have to,” Giuliani said on This Week. “He’s the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have.”

Trump himself has said he understands that pleading the Fifth is a last-resort move in any probe.

“The mob takes the Fifth,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Iowa in September 2016. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

Trump was referring to his opponent during the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, whose aides invoked their right to plead the Fifth during a congressional probe into the former Secretary of State’s use of a private email server.

Giuliani, a former prosecutor, said last week that Trump knew about the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels before the 2016 election and that he reimbursed his longtime attorney in full. In early April, Trump said on Air Force One that he had no knowledge of the payment to Daniels. The president reprimanded Giuliani last week, saying he needed to “get his facts straight” about the story surrounding the porn star. Cohen has pleaded the Fifth Amendment in the case involving Daniels.

Giuliani also added that Trump should refuse to comply with any further subpoena Mueller issues as part of his investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 election. The special counsel has already subpoenaed the Trump Organization for business documents.

The former New York mayor also accused Daniels of using her newfound fame to obtain as much money as possible, and slammed her recent public appearances, including one where she played herself in a sketch on Saturday Night Live over the weekend.

Trump and Giuliani have insisted that the payment to Daniels did not violate any campaign finance laws, because it was not made with campaign funds and was funneled through a law firm. However, all expenses made by a candidate during an election cycle must be properly reported on time to the Federal Election Commission.

Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti appeared on the same ABC show after Giuliani over the weekend, and called the former prosecutor’s interview “one of the worst TV appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times.”