Cornered Trump spews at least 6 lies in 2 minutes during Fox interview

Federal prosecutors now believe that Trump committed felonies when he and his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, tried to influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to Trump’s former mistresses.

And on Thursday, a seemingly panicked Trump told at least six different lies about his alleged crimes and his relationship with Cohen in less than two minutes of an interview on Fox News.

Even in the face of friendly questioning on a network that functions as his de facto propaganda arm, Trump still chose to mislead viewers with a rapid-fire series of far-fetched and contradictory claims about the man who was his fixer and personal lawyer.

Here are the six lies Trump told:

1) Trump said Cohen did “very low-level work” within his organization, which is a clearly untruthful way to describe the man who worked as his attack dog and enforcer for over a decade. If Cohen was such a low-level employee, why would Trump have trusted him with making very sensitive and secretive payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from telling the world that she slept with Trump?

2) Trump claimed that Cohen “did more public relations than he did law.” While Cohen did make embarrassing appearances on TV on Trump’s behalf, he also definitely acted as Trump’s lawyer — and even once intimidated a reporter with legal threats for reporting negatively on Trump. Cohen did enough legal work for Trump that the FBI raided his offices to seize years’ worth of documents. And again: Why would Trump have let a PR guy handle a sensitive legal matter like paying off mistresses?

3) Trump further tried to distance himself from Cohen by insisting that he only hired Cohen as thanks for a “favor” done to Trump years ago. That favor? Advocating for Trump on a condo board. Again, why would Trump trust a guy who … you get the idea.

4) Trump claimed that the criminal activity Cohen confessed to in court “was all unrelated to me, except for the two campaign finance charges that are not criminal.” But Cohen was just sentenced to three years in prison for those acts that Trump says were “not criminal.”

5) Trump insisted that federal prosecutors added the supposedly bogus campaign finance charges to Cohen’s case just to “embarrass” Trump. The idea that federal prosecutors would defraud the criminal justice system by filing false charges just to “embarrass” a U.S. president, and that Cohen would accept jail time for the same reason, is beyond nuts.

6) Trump suggested that President Barack Obama had similar troubles with campaign finance law to Trump’s. That’s not even close to true.

Trump’s lies are complicated, but the truth is simple.

Cohen committed crimes to defend Trump. He admitted this in court to get a reduced jail sentence because he knew he couldn’t get away with it, and because he was tired of performing “dirty deeds” on behalf of his former boss.

Multiple legal proceedings over the last week have made it clear to the American people that Trump was deeply involved in breaking federal laws.

Even members of Trump’s own party are finally beginning to admit that there’s a good reason Trump is under the microscope of federal investigators.

Trump’s response to this truth, as usual, is to tell lies on top of lies to avoid it.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.