Reporters finally caught up with White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders Friday afternoon and, frankly, her response to the bombshell report that Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress was both predictable and telling. Asked point-blank whether Trump directed Cohen, Sanders did not give a simple yes or no. Instead, she deflected by referring back to the statement from Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said of the BuzzFeed article. “I think that the President’s outside counsel addressed this best and said in a statement earlier today that it’s ‘categorically false.’”
Giuliani had finally issued a statement on the matter several hours earlier, saying, "Any suggestion from any source that the president counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false.”
That Sanders would defer to Giuliani isn’t exactly news. Still, when White House aides have been asked about the accusation, not a single one of them has simply said, “No, it’s not true.” Referring back to Giuliani’s statement gives Sanders some measure of cover, which is something every White House aide seems to be looking for at the moment.
Check out the Sanders video below.