Donald Trump changes his story about hush money payments so often, it’s hard to keep up. Perhaps that’s the point, confuse his own supporters so they only believe his latest twist on a very twisted tale. First, Trump said he didn’t know about the payments, then he said he only found out after the fact. Later he seemed to admit he knew about the payments but he said they weren’t illegal. Now the story is shifting again. His latest account may have to do with the National Enquirer’s admission that it made a $150,000 payment in “concert with” the Trump campaign” to kill a story. And, no doubt it is a reaction to Michael Cohen’s statement that he covered up Trump’s “dirty deeds.” 

Here’s what the President said via Twitter:

I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called “advice of counsel,” and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not guilty even on a civil bases. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!

Everyone in that courtroom, including the judge, concluded that you directed Cohen to commit a crime.

You don’t appear to have a viable advice of counsel defense because you were not seeking legal advice from Cohen at the time, and the burden would be on you to prove that

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) December 13, 2018