.@RepCharlieDent on contradiction between what Trump and @PressSec have said about the Daniels payment: "I guess at some point you have to ask the question, how does Sarah Huckabee Sanders go to work every day if she was sent out there to mislead the American people?" pic.twitter.com/l3X5sOVWdP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 3, 2018
Retiring Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) took shots at White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday over news that President Trump reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about their alleged affair.
In an interview with CNN, Dent noted that the story directly contradicts past statements made by both Sanders and the president, adding that he believes Trump’s newly appointed lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), who made the claim Wednesday night in an explosive interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
{mosads}
“Well, it’s clear that someone wasn’t telling the truth, either Sarah Huckabee Sanders or the president,” Dent said. “I believe what Rudy Giuliani said last night — that Michael Cohen was reimbursed by the president for this hush payment,” he continues.
“I guess at some point you have to ask the question, how does Sarah Huckabee Sanders go to work every day if she was sent out there to mislead the American people?”
Dent’s statements follow Giuliani’s admission Wednesday that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment despite both Trump and Sanders stating that the president knew nothing about the payment.
“The president was always going to make sure he got it back, and enough money to pay the taxes,” Giuliani told The Washington Post following the Fox News interview.
The remark contradicts Sanders’s comments in March, when she told reporters that Trump did not know about the payment.
“Not that I’m aware of,” she told reporters when pressed on whether Trump was privy to the agreement.
Last month aboard Air Force One, Trump said he didn’t know where Cohen got the money. When reporters asked whether he knew about the arrangement, Trump responded, “No.”
Dent, a centrist Republican who announced his retirement earlier this year, is expected to leave Congress this month. He ran unopposed in the previous cycle and represented a district that he won by a 20-point margin in 2016.