During a week filled with bombshells about Donald Trump's alleged wrongdoing, Republicans bent over backward to avoid talking about crimes involving the president.
The Washington Post reported that as Trump's legal problems "continued to spiral this past week," Republicans in Congress once again found themselves finding ways to respond -- and often did so by obfuscation and avoidance.
In one moment, Sen. James Risch (R-ID) wouldn't even let a reporter finish asking him a question about Trump allegedly authorizing "hush money" payments to women.
“Oh, I don’t do interviews on any of that stuff,” Risch said when asked about the president's changing explanations on the subject.
“I don’t do any interviews on anything to do with Trump and that sort of thing, okay?” the Idaho Republican said when pressed.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) had a similar excuse.
“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” Shelby told reporters. “I don’t know anything except what I hear and read about all that.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was even more forceful, telling a reporter to "Stop" when they brought up the president's scandals.
“I have not heard what you told me he said," Grassley admitted. "Until I read, actually read, what the president said, I won’t comment on it.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said a question about Trump's shifting explanations on the payments wasn't "fair" and pointed out that he was not in the room with the president and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) said "it’s really hard to react" to Cohen's sentencing.
“Until we have a full picture, until the full evidence is presented by the Southern District or charges filed or that sort of thing, I just think it’s really hard to react or draw any hard and fast conclusions,” Thune said in an interview.
In the same interview, the South Dakota Republican chuckled when discussing the president's past.
“I’m sure that he, again, coming out of his private life, sort of views this as not something that was done to impact or affect a campaign — that it’s something that he was trying to deal with in the way that he perhaps has dealt with those issues in the past," he said.
Thune's seatmate, Sen. Mike Rounds, said he thinks Trump "means very well" when asked about the "hush money" payments.
Perhaps the most obvious dismissal, however, came from outgoing Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who earlier this week made headlines when he said he didn't "care" what Trump did regarding the payments.
"I don’t care," Hatch said Monday when a reporter asked about the payments. "All I can say is he’s doing a good job as president.”
The retiring senator walked his comments back on Friday, saying they were "irresponsible and a poor reflection on my lengthy record of dedication to the rule of law."
