CT Blue

Donald Trump’s fixer lawyer has admitted that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence during the presidential campaign:

Cohen stated:

“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly. The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”

This raises some interesting questions.

First, let us assume, just for the sake of argument, and putting aside his legal conclusions, that what he says is true. The affair took place in 2006, and if memory serves, it was written up in a magazine in 2011. Apparently, Ms. Daniel’s silence was not worth a dime back then. After all, reading about Donald Trump having an affair in those days was a real yawner, like, what else is new. So, the timing here is somewhat suspect, is it not? One could conclude, without needlessly taxing one’s brain, that Ms. Daniel’s silence was suddenly worth something to someone in October of 2016.

Actually, I should point out here that Cohen was probably wasting his money, because had the affair been exposed, Trump probably wouldn’t have lost a vote among his yahoo supporters. But Cohen didn’t know that. So he was definitely providing a thing of value to the Trump campaign. When one provides something of value to a political campaign, said something is a campaign donation, subject to monetary limits and disclosure requirements. If you don’t believe me, just ask John Edwards, who was put on trial for soliciting money from donors to pay for the silence of his mistress:

The fact that Mr. Edwards tried to cover up his affair is not at issue. The Justice Department says that those contributions from two wealthy patrons were campaign donations and therefore subject to federal campaign finance laws that set limits on the amounts that can be donated and received, and require public reporting. Those two donations were well in excess of the limit of $2,300 that an individual can give.

The indictment says the money was actually used for campaign purposes: If the public knew that he was having an affair, his campaign would have been over. (It was over anyway in January 2008, before he confessed to the affair in August, after he lost too many primaries to Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. But it might have imploded even earlier if the affair had been known.)

Edwards got off, because the government couldn’t prove it’s case:

“The verdict is not surprising,” said Steve Friedland, a law professor at Elon University School of Law in North Carolina. “Since there was not a smoking gun and lots of indirect evidence, it was very difficult for the prosecution to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of taking illegal campaign contributions.”

Cohen has all but admitted that he paid for Daniels silence in the midst of a presidential campaign in order to aid his fellow genius’s presidential campaign. He violated the law by making an illegal campaign contribution; it isn’t even necessary to prove that the Trump campaign was aware of it. That gun isn’t smoking, it’s on fire.

Now, it’s a near certainty nothing will be done to Cohen. We live in a post-rule of law world. Still, it is beyond question that he knowingly violated the law.

Here’s another interesting twist. Daniels has decided that Cohen’s admission frees her from the non-disclosure agreement:

A manager for the adult film actress told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Daniels believes Trump’s lawyer invalidated a non-disclosure agreement by publicly discussing the payment.

Gina Rodriguez says the actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, will discuss her alleged 20006 extramarital affair with Trump.

Now, this makes perfect sense, for after all, when Cohen bought her silence, besides the money she was also getting Trump’s silence (and Cohen’s). After all, if word of the affair got out it would damage her reputation just as much, if not more, than Trump’s. I’m not a woman, but I’m pretty sure if I we’re, the last thing I’d want people to know is that I had the bad taste to have sex with Donald Trump. More than once, even! So Cohen breached the agreement first, and Stormy is now free to speak, though her reputation is now permanently damaged. As a practical matter, in my humble opinion, she’s been free all along, because the genius and/or Cohen would have run up against a bit of a Catch 22 had they brought suit to enforce the agreement, since the act of bringing the suit would have amounted to an acknowledgment of the truth of what she was saying.

Finally, let us pause and consider if something like this had come out about Barack Obama. It would matter not that his “lawyer” paid the money. We would never have heard the end of it. I give this piece of news a shelf life of 3 days. If memory serves, not a single member of the Obama administration was credibly accused of a criminal act. It’s becoming almost routine for members of this administration to out and out admit to criminal behavior. And of course, very few days pass before another story appears about yet another Trump official stealing from the public purse.