Lying probably won't help

President Trump denied on Thursday knowing of a $130,000 payment his lawyer made to a pornographic film actress who claims to have had a sexual encounter with him, an assertion that threatened to complicate his legal battle against her.

  NYT

The smartest thing he could have done in this case is admit the affair. His base wouldn't abandon him, and everybody else would have forgotten about it in no time. He hasn't done himself any favors by refusing to cop to it and getting that idiot lawyer of his to make up a story to cover him.  Is he afraid of Melania?  Surely he's got a pre-nup.

Mr. Trump made his first public remarks about the matter aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., where he had held a round table on tax cuts. Asked by a reporter if he knew about the payment to the actress, Stormy Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, he said, “No.”

[...]

The president said he did not know where the money had come from, and ignored a question about whether he ever set up a fund Mr. Cohen could draw from.

[...]

The president’s comments on Thursday could create a predicament for him and his legal team. Ms. Clifford’s case is based on the notion that the confidentiality agreement is invalid because Mr. Trump was not a party to it. By saying he was not aware of the agreement, Mr. Trump appeared to confirm that argument, which would mean neither party is legally bound by it, thus potentially paving the way for Ms. Clifford to break her silence without consequences.

Maybe he's going this route so that when she does talk about it, he can simply call her a liar and all the people that back her up as being just out to get him, and tghen just call every story about it "fake news".

Ms. Clifford’s pugnacious lawyer, Michael J. Avenatti, quickly issued a statement to respond to Mr. Trump’s claim.

[...]

“The strength of our case just went up exponentially. You can’t have an agreement when one party claims to know nothing about it. #nodiscipline.”

[...]

He said that the president’s professed ignorance of the payment would improve his client’s case, suggesting that he would use legal discovery to expose the back and forth around the payment.

That will make the "fake news" option difficult.

“As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath,” he added.

Something Mueller is counting on, too.

Mr. Trump and a company affiliated with him filed papers in court on Monday seeking to force Ms. Clifford to raise her disputes through private arbitration, not lawsuits.

Arbitration would shield the case from public view, sparing Mr. Trump the public spectacle that would attend a lawsuit with a discovery process and a trial. Mr. Avenatti said at the time that he would vigorously oppose the effort to resolve the case privately. In fact, on Thursday night, he said that Mr. Trump’s remarks had made him more determined than ever to try to depose the president.

“If the president didn’t know anything about the payment, then he obviously didn’t know anything about the agreement, in which case you can’t have an agreement,” Mr. Avenatti said in an interview on MSNBC. “And then there is no such thing as an NDA,” he added, referring to a nondisclosure agreement.

“Now if, on the other hand, what he said on Air Force One is not accurate — and I, for one, have serious questions as to its veracity or accuracy — they’ve got a whole host of problems,” Mr. Avenatti said.

As do we, buddy, as do we. And the worst ones could be remedied by removing Old Lardass from office.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.