Did Trump Aid and Abet a Campaign Finance Law violation?

Politics

[View here as a Twitter thread]

Cohen pleaded guilty to 52 USC 30116(a)(1)(A) and (a)(7), making excessive and unreported in-kind campaign violations through his payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

1/ Under penalty of perjury, Cohen said he made the payments for the purpose of influencing the election and “at the direction” of Trump.  Cohen also said that he knew he was committing a crime when he made the payments.

2/ Trump’s “defense” (offered on Fox) was that the payment wasn’t a crime because the money came from him, not the campaign.  Unfortunately for Trump, federal law treats a loan to a campaign the same as a contribution:

3/ WSJ reported that Trump didn’t repay Cohen until 2017. Trump repaid the loan under a phony invoice for legal services, which appears to be an attempt to hide the source of the money, and thus also involves reporting and possibly tax violations.

4/ Let’s not lose sight of the big picture: Just before what proved to be a very close election, Cohen—acting under Trump’s direction—committed a crime to prevent the public from learning that Trump had affairs with a porn star and a Playboy model.

Someone on Twitter asked: “but Alan Dershowitz said it wasn’t a campaign finance violation. Are you, Terri, etc, smarter than him?” What do ya say to that one?”

Dersh is often wrong about the law these days. The part he overlooked was that loans are treated like contributionswhich makes sense–otherwise, there’s an easy way around the law. Nobody knows all the laws by heart. He isn’t doing serious research.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-discloses-reimbursement-to-michael-cohen-tied-to-stormy-daniels-payment-1526493667?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

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