President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani insisted Sunday that Trump didn’t know about hacked Democratic emails before Wikileaks published the emails during the 2016 campaign — but also, that Trump wouldn’t be in legal trouble if he had known in advance about the emails.
“Did Roger Stone ever give the President a heads up on Wikileaks leaks concerning Hillary Clinton and the DNC?” ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked Giuliani in an interview Sunday.
“No he didn’t,” Giuliani said. “I don’t believe so.”
“But again,” he continued, “if Roger Stone gave anybody a heads up about Wikileaks leaks, that’s not a crime. It would be like giving him a heads up that the Times is going to print something.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Giuliani claimed he could corral “20 witnesses” to claim that Donald Trump would sooner pay hush money out of concern for his family than for his campaign.
Giuliani began by comparing the hush money campaign finance violations to which Michael Cohen pleaded guilty (and in which the President is implicated) to the violations for which a jury ultimately did not convict former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
“If there’s another purpose” for a hush money payment, besides aiding a candidate’s campaign, Giuliani argued, “it’s no longer a campaign contribution.”
Stephanopoulos pushed back: “In this case, you have contemporaneous witnesses saying it was for the campaign, you have the statement of fact saying Donald Trump met with [American Media executive] David Pecker–”
“And I can produce an enormous number of witnesses that say the President was very concerned about how this was going to affect his children, his marriage,” Giuliani interjected. “All those women came forward at that time, that tape with Billy Bush and all that. It’s all part of the same thing. I know what he was concerned about. I can produce 20 witnesses to tell you what he was concerned about.”
“Two weeks before the campaign?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“You’re damn right,” Giuliani said.
Earlier this year, Giuliani implied that at least one hush money payment was made to help Trump’s campaign.
In May, Giuliani said of Stormy Daniels’ allegations of an affair with Trump: “Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.”
