I think at that time, they didn't know really know if Trump would make it through the Access Hollywood tape and assault charges. Not having yet another sex-type-thing pile-on was their aim. Trump supporters, that hard-core group who will seemingly never abandon Trump, weren't the primary concern. It is always the middle; those who are neither hard-core Republicans nor hard-core Democrats. Certainly, each side has to keep the base intact, but they need either a good chunk of the middle to vote for them, or not vote for the other side.
Crimson847 wrote: big part of the reason the story has had more impact now is that Trump essentially admitted her story was true by signing that NDA
Almost.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... at-the-xxxPresident Trump's proclivity for putting his name on buildings, steaks, ties and certificates is well-known. But former adult film actress Stormy Daniels says he failed to put his name on their contra
Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a civil suit against President Trump on Tuesday alleging the nondisclosure agreement she signed just days before the 2016 election is invalid because it's missing Trump's signature.
The point stands, though, since the existence of the NDA, with its laughably transparent pseudonyms, is enough to strongly indicated that Trump had sex with Daniels, and knew about the attempt to keep it quiet.
I don't think there's any point in Trump, through Giuliani, denying it anymore. I also figure they calculated that the material seized from Cohen was enough to clearly show that Trump had repaid Cohen (and then some). I don't think Cohen needs to flip for investigators to piece it together. By shifting the campaign contribution question back to Trump, it could relieve at least some of the pressure on Cohen about this specific question, sooner rather than later.
The other thing Giuliani revealed is yet another rationalization for firing Comey. While the admission about Daniels, and how the payment worked, is simply getting ahead of the obvious, this could be something else.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/03/politics ... index.htmlBut Giuliani said something else in the course of that sitdown with Hannity that's also a very big deal. It was this -- in relation to the May 2017 firing of then-FBI Director James Comey:
"(Trump) fired Comey because Comey would not, among to other things, say that he wasn't a target of the investigation. He's entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that. And he couldn't get that. So he fired him. And then he said, 'I'm free of (these) guys.'"
In other news, Trump addressed the NRA. Being Trump, he had to pepper it with his usual mix of half-reading something, and general ignorance.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... o-war-zone“I recently read a story that, in London, which has unbelievably tough gun laws, a once very prestigious hospital -- right in the middle -- is like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds,” Trump told the annual gathering of National Rifle Association in Dallas on Friday, without identifying the source of his information. The hospital, which he didn’t name, had “blood all over the floors” from knife crime, he said.
“They say it’s as bad as a military war-zone hospital,” Trump told the U.S. pro-gun rights’ group. “Knives, knives, knives. London hasn’t been used to that. They’re getting used to it. It’s pretty tough.”
As you can imagine, Trump's line of thought hasn't gone-over too well in Blighty.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/d ... 32056.htmlLiberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey said despite a rise in crime in the capital, Mr Trump's remarks are "nevertheless ridiculous".
He said: "To defend America's shocking gun laws by revealing his ignorance of Britain should alarm even his apologists in the Conservative Party."
Indeed, "should", Sir Davey, but most certainly won't. If Trump jammed a klaxon in their faces whilst loudly farting with a strangely Russian accent through several bullhorns, they wouldn't blink, because the part of their humanity which
should be alarmed is dead. It's less cognitive dissonance than it is do-it-yourself lobotomies. The most they can bring themselves to do is quit Congress for a rough, perilous, life of the uncertainty of high-paying corporate/lobbyist gigs while firing a few shots of after-the-fact morality over their shoulder on the way out, or, you know, whatever Paul Ryan's process is.
A quantum state of signature may or may not be here... you just ruined it.