Giuliani stumbles into admitting Trump’s hush money payments were probably illegal

The second point is that Giuliani is moving the goal posts. The Trump team’s denials on this have been steadily watered down over time. Eventually, Giuliani and Co. admitted to the payments but said they were personal — the kind of thing Trump would have done even if it weren’t the eve of the 2016 election.

“I also think, personally, neither one of them saw it as a campaign thing; they thought of it as a personal thing,” he told The Washington Post in May. He told “Fox and Friends” the same day: “This was for personal reasons. This was — the president had been hurt personally . . . so much and the first lady, by some of the false allegations . . . It was to save their marriage — not their marriage, so much, but their reputation.”

But Giuliani doesn’t even seem to be holding that line any more. Implicit in his comments at the top is the idea that this wasn’t solely personal but, instead, served a dual purpose that included the campaign. “It’s not a contribution if it’s intended for a purpose in addition to the campaign purpose,” he said.