Washington lawyer Joseph diGenova said on Sunday that Rudy Giuliani’s statements about President Trump reimbursing his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels are irrelevant.
“I think they’re irrelevant, what matters here is that the payment was legal. It was for personal reasons, to protect the family,” diGenova told “Fox News Sunday.” “It serves no useful purpose in terms of the facts of it but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a nothing burger.”
DiGenova’s comments come just a few days after Giuliani, who recently joined the president’s legal team, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Trump reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment as part of a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels meant to stop her from discussing an alleged affair with Trump.
{mosads}
DiGenova said that the payment, which came just days before the 2016 presidential election, wasn’t for the campaign.
“If it is a purely personal matter, which this clearly has to be, it doesn’t matter what its relationship was to the timetable in a campaign,” diGenova said.
He added that only a client can waive attorney-client privilege, so Giuliani’s comments didn’t waive the privilege for the president.
Trump’s lawyers said in March that diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, would be added to the president’s legal team, however, they ultimately did not join due to possible conflicts of interest.