Of all the unlikely allies Robert Mueller has ever had and of all the foes the president has ever faced, porn star Stormy Daniels now ranks among the most formidable.
Before Daniels entered both the legal and the media frays, the president and his defenders constantly claimed special counsel Mueller's investigation was never getting anywhere. They still do. The claim was already hard to take seriously with the indictments and guilty pleas brought in by the special counsel's team. Mueller's critics also insisted the investigation had crossed a line by going into the president's business affairs. Now, thanks to Daniels and her lawyer, both claims look ridiculous.
Daniels' lawyer told the world on Tuesday the president's former "fixer" opened a "consulting" business that took a half-million dollars from a Russian oligarch, among millions raked in from better-paying clients. This happened as the president was getting inaugurated or shortly thereafter.
I have never known or heard of any one person who was ever a highly paid consultant on health care, telecommunications and aerospace at the same time. The remarkable "fixer" Michael Cohen somehow managed it.
The "consulting" business just happens to be the same one that paid Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about her 2006 hook-up with the man who went on to become the president.
Arkansas' own Alice Stewart, long-time Republican strategist, came on a radio panel Wednesday afternoon and acknowledged the "optics are terrible." She advised her Republican friends to keep their heads down, try to focus on other things and wait for investigators to resolve the matter.
Later the same day the U.S. Treasury announced it would investigate the release of the information on the "fixer." Meanwhile Cohen's attorney complained in a court motion about the information's release -- further evidence the tweet came from court sources. Such further proof was hardly necessary. "Customers" such as AT&T made bumbling, wholly unconvincing answers about why they paid a "consultant" whose only qualification appears to be his claim of an inside track with the president and people close to him.
If Cohen is a fixer, customers should check their warranty.
Perhaps Daniels is messing up some carefully laid plan Mueller is unfolding, but I doubt it. She does what Mueller cannot do -- fight fire with fire, or at least hot air with hotter air. And she is the only open foe of the president so far with a proven ability to take the president's heat.
Think back to the cringe-worthy Republican primary debate in 2016, the one that devolved into an exchange about "hand size." That is the best example of how "respectable" opponents look like fools when they try to beat Donald Trump at his own game. They try to splatter muck on Trump and look like they were better than him at the same time. They fail -- miserably.
Now it is the president and his team try to splatter Daniels while trying to look better than her. They are failing -- miserably.
Consider a tweet sent to Daniels one Wednesday morning in March. All the anonymous detractor tweeted was the word "Slut." Daniels' quick reply, in its entirety, was "Yes."
Daniels cannot be shamed. When another Twitter detractor accused Daniels of being willing to do anything for money, she replied with an expletive followed by: "NO amount of money can convince me to do dishes or toilets."
As one admiring Twitter supporter summed up: "Ah, a woman who embraces her sexuality and her work and won't be shamed. Men don't know how to deal with that." That statement is a little too much, though. A gentleman could deal with just about any situation and not have to resort to shaming anyone. The president is no gentleman, however.
Speaking of cringe-worthy things, consider the weekend spent on the news shows by the president's new lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. He pretty much contradicted everything the president and his defenders had said about this case up to that point. Then he came back later and denied it all.
"I think it is obvious to the American people that this is a cover-up, that they are making it up as they go along, they don't know what to say because they've lost track of the truth," Michael Avenatti, Daniels' attorney, said after Giuliani's amazing streak.
Unlike the special counsel, Daniels is not silent. Unlike the president, she has a sharp lawyer and a concerted legal and media strategy.
Commentary on 05/12/2018