Yesterday, Michael Cohen said under oath that he made hush money payments at Donald Trump’s direction in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Today, the Republican National Committee struggled to defend the president’s corruption and, as they do, resorted to distorting the facts. It’s clear their strategy is to throw whatever they can at the wall to explain away Trump’s actions — unfortunately for them, it’s not sticking.

The RNC said Cohen bore responsibility for the payments.

RNC spokesperson: “Well, look, Cohen made these payments. The president merely reimbursed them. Remember, that tape came out and the president was quite confused as to why there even had to be any sort of payment. This was something Cohen did. This is something the president reimbursed.”

Cohen said he made the payments at Trump’s direction.

New York Times: “Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, made the extraordinary admission in court on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had directed him to arrange payments to two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump.”

Trump said the payments came from him.

Trump: “They came from me.”

Sarah Sanders did not deny that Trump made the payments.

Sanders: “White House press secretary Sarah Sanders maintained Wednesday that President Donald Trump ‘did nothing wrong’ relating to the hush money payments made to women who claimed affairs with him during the 2016 campaign.”