‘This is Evidence… Not Exoneration’: WaPo’s Philip Bump Brutally Fact-Checks Marjorie Taylor Greene Over Trump Hush Money Trial
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Washington Post national columnist Philip Bump offered a quick fact-check Monday to a tweet from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), in which she posted a regular right-wing talking point regarding Donald Trump’s porn star hush money trial.
Greene tweeted a January 2018 statement from Stormy Daniels and wrote, “Stormy Daniels said the affair never happened and Michael Cohen committed perjury and is a serial liar. This political show trial shouldn’t be happening!”
In the statement, Daniels writes, “Over the past few weeks I have been asked countless times to comment on reports of an alleged sexual relationship I had with Donald Trump many, many, many years ago. The fact of the matter is that each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 20011, 2016, 2017 and now again in 2018. I am not denying this affair because I was paid “hush money” as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. I am denying this affair because it never happened. I will have no further comment on this matter. Please feel free to check me out on Instagram at @thestormydaniels.”
While Trump himself has shared this statement in recent weeks, Bump points out it isn’t quite what it seems and even argues that it is in fact evidence that Trump not only had the affair with Daniels, but that she had been effectively silenced at the time.
“Again, this is the cover that the money Cohen gave Daniels (for which he was reimbursed by Trump) was paying for. This is evidence of the alleged crime, not exoneration,” Bump replied.
The Associated Press published a fact-check of claims like Greene’s, which cited the 2018 statement and concluded that those claims missed context.
“Missing context. The signed statement with the denial was publicly released on Jan. 30, 2018. Not long after, Daniels recanted the statement and said that an affair had occurred. She said her denials were due to a non-disclosure agreement and that she signed the statement because parties involved ‘made it sound like I had no choice,’” wrote the AP, which additionally noted that Daniels had first publicly discussed her affair with Trump as far back as 2011.
“As the AP has reported, in a 2011 interview with the gossip magazine In Touch Weekly, Daniels — who the magazine said passed a polygraph exam — said the two had sex on one occasion and she described subsequent in-person meetings, phone calls and discussions about a potential TV appearance. In Touch held off on publishing her account after Cohen threatened to sue the publication; it was published in 2018,” concluded the AP.
