Alleged payoff for porn star's silence warrants FEC investigation
Wednesday, March 7, 2018, 5:41 PM
he bedrock principle of our campaign finance laws is that Americans have a right to know who is paying for campaigns and how their money is being spent to influence our votes. Surely that includes the $130,000 that was funneled to adult film star Stormy Daniels by President Trump's attorney and used to buy her silence days before the 2016 election.
It's now almost beyond dispute that Donald Trump was involved in negotiating a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels just before he was elected President. Between Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's admission that he facilitated the payment of hush money to Daniels and Daniels' new lawsuit alleging Trump's direct involvement, the facts point to the necessity for Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice investigations of this matter ...
The complaints make a compelling case that the $130,000 payment to Daniels was made to influence the presidential election; that makes it a campaign expenditure ...
By failing to report the payment as a campaign expense, the Trump campaign violated multiple federal disclosure laws. And depending on the source of the $130,000 paid to Daniels, the payment may also have been an illegal contribution. If the funds came from a corporation like the Trump Organization, the payment would be an illegal corporate contribution because corporations are prohibited from make contributions to federal candidates. And if the money came from Cohen or anyone other than Trump himself, it would violate the $2,700 limit on individual contributions to a federal candidate ...
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/trump-payoff-stormy-daniels-warrants-federal-investigation-article-1.3861884