Thursday night brought a seismic new revelation in the Russia probe, as it emerged Michael Cohen now claims that Donald Trump, American president, knew in advance about the infamous Trump Tower meeting. That's the one where Donald Trump, Jr., the dauphin Jared Kushner, and campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a cast of Russians after Junior was told in the lead-up that he would be offered dirt on Hillary Clinton by a lawyer connected to the Kremlin. His response? "If it's what you say, I love it." Now, Cohen suggests, the president was abreast of all of this—and approved what sounds a lot like collusion with a hostile foreign power.

This may represent a turning point in the investigation. It certainly presents an opportunity for some more Presidential Lawyering on Television. Enter Rudy Giuliani, looking more like The Penguin by the day, to suggest to CNN's Chris Cuomo that none of this matters because Cohen is a "pathological liar."

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“He has lied all his life… a person who is found to be an incredible liar, he’s got a tremendous motive to lie now… I don’t think anyone believes that.” Rudy Giuliani dismisses report Michael Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting https://t.co/xd4PFYYpcQ pic.twitter.com/9gxjNGWLRA — Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) July 27, 2018

Giuliani has a point there: Cohen is a distinguished liar and has specialized in fabrication and deception for years. It's just he was doing it on behalf of Donald Trump before. It's almost like they were operating in the shadier precincts of the business world, then politics, and it required regular cover-ups and obfuscations to keep asses out of the frying pan. It's probably impossible to put Rudy's argument better than Jon Lovett did:

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Rudy: My client’s long-time lawyer and confidante is not credible because he has spent so many years lying on behalf of my client, who is credible. — Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) July 27, 2018

Sure, Cohen used to say he took care of the Playboy payoff himself, without the president's knowledge—something we now know, thanks to the tape that dropped this week, to be false. But he was lying for "Mr. Trump," so Giuliani and Co. had no problem. The way you know that is that Giuliani used to say the exact opposite things about Cohen—on TV!

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Here's Rudy Giuliani on May 6, 2018, saying Michael Cohen "is an honest, honorable lawyer."



(Last night, Giuliani told @ChrisCuomo that Michael Cohen is a "pathological liar" who can't be trusted.) pic.twitter.com/PBZTkujgDX — Caroline Orr Bueno (@RVAwonk) July 27, 2018

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It truly is amazing to watch, in this Age of Shamelessness, as adult humans behave as if there is not video that people can easily access of them saying the opposite thing they are now. It's a bizarre spin on lacking object permanence. Factual Impermanence, maybe.

This reminds us of Giuliani's credibility issues, which are legion. He suggested Cohen has lied just this week, but so has Giuliani: He lied about the Cohen tape, calling it exculpatory for the president and suggesting—even now—that it does not show Trump had prior knowledge of the payment made to Playboy model Karen McDougal. (As Cuomo pointed out last night, how did Trump know the dollar amount—$150,000—on the tape if he didn't know what was going down? It's absurd.)

But the biggest credibility issue of all, of course, is presented by the president, who is currently going bonkers on The Tweet Machine. Donald Trump is one of history's truly prodigious liars, a natural talent that has been honed to true mastery through a lifetime of grift and graft at the edges of business respectability. As Cuomo reminded Giuliani last night, there is no reason to believe a word Trump says about anything, but particularly on The Russian Connection:

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.@chriscuomo to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani: “Your client has a credibility issue… says things that are not true" #CuomoPrimeTime https://t.co/xd4PFZg04o pic.twitter.com/E3EV9FV6Sg — Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) July 27, 2018

The fact is that, while anything Cohen says should be taken with a boulder of salt, at least the same goes for the president. And Cohen has reportedly signaled he is willing to sing this tune to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, under penalty of perjury. Speaking of, Junior testified before a Senate committee that Trump the Elder knew nothing of the meeting. Looks like he's on the highway to the Danger Zone.

As Cuomo also reminded us, Cohen claims there were other people present at the meeting where he allegedly heard Junior tell Senior about the upcoming Hillary Clinton Russian Dirt Extravaganza at Trump Tower. That means there may be corroborating witnesses for Cohen's story. And, as always, it's possible that Mueller knows all of this already. Certainly, y0u know he won't hinge his case on a witness like Cohen.

Perhaps the most faux-poignant moment of last night's proceedings was Giuliani's rumination on the great betrayals of history—of which we're supposed to believe Cohen's is one. Gaze in wonder at this monologue:

That's kind of part of the human condition, right? I mean, we all make mistakes about people who turn out to be disloyal to us. Benedict Arnold was disloyal to George Washington, our greatest president, right? So, anybody can—Brutus, Jesus. You can go back to ancient, classical literature and find people you think you trust, and they turn out to be scoundrels.

George Washington, Julius Caesar...Donald Trump. Certainly, if Cohen follows through on this and his story can be corroborated, it would figure as a betrayal of Trump. It's just it would be less Caesar-and-Brutus than Tony-and-Frank. This idea that Michael Cohen turned out to be a scoundrel doesn't fit the bill. If this all shakes out, it's only a reminder that Cohen has been a scoundrel the whole time. It's just his boss was a scoundrel, too.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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