President Trump told Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt that he knew “later on” about payments that his then-attorney Michael Cohen arranged to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. (Variety)
The statement contradicts Cohen’s statements in court Tuesday. Cohen said in a statement while formally pleading guilty to fraud charges and campaign finance violations that he oversaw the payments “at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” widely understood to be Trump. (Politico)
“You have to understand, Ainsley, what he did and—they weren’t taken out of campaign finance. That’s a much bigger thing… They did not come out of campaign. They came from me. And I tweeted about it. But they did not come out of campaign,” Trump said. (Deadline)
From there, Trump pivoted to attack President Obama for having a “massive campaign violation, but he had a different attorney general and they viewed it a lot differently.” With that line, the president appeared to be blaming his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for the prosecution of Cohen. The interview is scheduled to air in full on Thursday morning. (Daily Beast)