President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought Friday to clean up a series of comments he had made about a settlement with an adult-film actress who had an alleged relationship with Trump, backtracking on his previous assertions about what the president knew and why the payment was made.

The cautious wording of the written statement released by Giuliani stood in sharp contrast to his previous two days of wide-ranging television and print interviews in which, according to legal experts, he exposed his client to greater legal risks and might have compromised his own attorney-client privilege with the president.