George Conway, an attorney and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, mocked Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s defense against claims that President Donald Trump committed campaign finance violations by directing longtime Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen to issue hush-money payments during the 2016 election.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, except where nobody gets killed or robbed,” Conway, in a play on the presidential oath of office, wrote on Twitter in response to a statement Giuliani gave to the Daily Beast, in which the Trump lawyer dismissed concerns regarding the payments.
“Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed… This was not a big crime,” Giuliani said of the payments in an interview with the news outlet Wednesday. “I think in two weeks they’ll start with parking tickets that haven’t been paid.”
Shaken and facing a prison term, Cohen alleged said Friday that President Trump directed him to buy the silence of two women during the 2016 campaign because he was concerned about how their stories of alleged affairs with him “would affect the election.”
Cohen told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he “gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty.”
“I am done with the lying,” Cohen told the veteran anchor. “I am done being loyal to President Trump.”
He added: “I will not be the villain of this story.”
Cohen was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in federal prison after pleaded guilty to several charges, including campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. Prosecutors have said then-candidate Donald Trump directed Cohen to arrange the payments to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the run-up to the 2016 campaign.
The decisions to pay off Daniels, who alleged she had an affair with a married President Trump in 2006, during the run-up to the 2016 election was made soon after an old Access Hollywood tape surfaced, in which Trump was heard talking about groping and trying to have sex with women, according to Cohen.
“He was very concerned about how this would affect the election,” Cohen told Stephanopoulos.
Asked whether the president also knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen said, “Of course.” However, Cohen did not provide any specific evidence or detail in the interview.
“First of all, nothing at the Trump organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump,” Cohen said. “He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters.”
President Trump has denied directing Cohen to break the law and has asserted in a series of tweets over the last several weeks that Cohen is a “liar” who cut a deal in order to get a reduced prison sentence and to help himself and his family.