For months, President Trump’s spokesmen, his lawyer and his lawyer’s lawyer denied that Trump knew about payments during his 2016 campaign to buy the silence of women who alleged sexual encounters with him. “I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law,” Trump wrote in Twitter statements that were at times hard to comprehend. The latest developments have exposed the depth of Trump’s efforts to deceive the public about the illegal hush-money payments, and some of his friends and advisers said privately that they fear those efforts could imperil the president. Trump’s credibility has been damaged by his and his team’s ever-evolving statements about the hush-money payments. On April 5, Trump flatly denied to reporters aboard Air Force One that he knew about the payment to Daniels.

Source: Washington Post December 14, 2018 00:33 UTC