I dont care if Trump had an affair. I care about the hush money.
I couldn’t care less whether in 2006 Donald Trump had a sexual affair with pornographic film actress Stephanie Clifford — known professionally as Stormy Daniels — only months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron.
Trump’s personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen says Trump has denied the affair. But even if it did occur, the relationship would have taken place years before the 2016 presidential election. Thus, it is a private matter between citizen Donald Trump and his wife and none of my business.
I do care, however, if within one month of the presidential election, Republican candidate Trump’s personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen paid hush money to Clifford/Daniels to keep the affair secret. True, the porn star is not, at least to the best of my knowledge, a public official. She has no public or legal duties to discharge. A payment of hush money to her, therefore, is unlikely to be illegal.
But campaign finance laws are there to ensure the integrity of our elections and the democratic process. And I do care about those things very much. I have written reams about end runs around our election laws, primarily here in our nation’s capital. I care just as much about those provisions at the federal level.
Hush-money negotiations and payments to Clifford, as described in the Wall Street Journal and other publications, ought to draw the attention — and anger — of anyone concerned about the conduct of candidates in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The allegations are detailed in a complaint that watchdog Common Cause filed with the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission. Essentially, they boil down to this: In October 2016, a few weeks before voters went to the polls, Trump’s personal lawyer Cohen arranged the payment of $130,000 to Clifford to not speak about any alleged encounter she had with Trump. That payment, Common Cause alleges, was an unreported in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign because it was “paid for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential general election”; and, if so, it was required to be publicly reported. Furthermore, if the source of the $130,000 was the Trump Organization — which Cohen has denied — the money would represent an impermissible corporate contribution.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-stormy-daniels-case-matters/2018/03/09/89a522f8-2317-11e8-86f6-54bfff693d2b_story.html?utm_term=.d7dc7a6000e6&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
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