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I commented on my understanding of the situation on reddit a while ago. Copy/pasting here: He paid off Stormy Daniels to keep her from talking about their rela

• ajdude 4y ago
  Interestingly, I tried to Google one of the paragraphs from your paste and it returned no results. When I tried DuckDuckGo, only HN came up. I was curious what redditors thought of your response and what context it was made, but search engines seem to fall down on finding a great deal of what's been hidden on the Internet these days.
  • throw_away1525 4y ago
    If you search for the entire 3rd paragraph and append 'reddit' on Google it is the first result. However, I agree with your point that search engines are performing poorly - obviously I was only able to get this to work because I already knew the answer.
  • pdpi 4y ago
    I expect that's because the post itself was deleted. Also, deleted threads don't get much traction, so Reddit didn't have much to say on the topic :) https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/11xfj6m/comment/jd2wi3b https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/11xfj6m/...
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• benjaminwootton 4y ago
  If this is the case, it seems to be a _relatively_ technical breach of the rules. Maybe intent would get to the heart of the matter. I'm no expert, but it's surprising to me that they would indict a previous president over this with all of the ramifications.
  • markdown 4y ago
    > indict a previous president over this with all of the ramifications. Some would argue that the consequences are positive. It's important for every citizen to know that nobody is above the law.
  • agentgumshoe 4y ago
    Also surprising in the wider context of politicians generally being involved in shenanigans across the board, this one is quite particular, and still not that conclusive. I mean I'm pretty sure we could find some serious insider trading crimes without too much investigation...
  • myvoiceismypass 4y ago
    Curious - which laws are serious/important enough to hold ex-presidents to, then?
  • mrguyorama 4y ago
    Why should a president be above the law?
• joosters 4y ago
  The difficulty here, as I understand it, is that Trump could have plenty of reasons for paying off someone, not all of which are to do with political campaigning. For instance, he could argue that he paid off SD to avoid damage to his relationship with his wife or family, and that it had nothing to do with his campaigning. (In fact, you could argue that this defence is even stronger because he is Donald Trump. He has plenty of dedicated supporters who seem to stick with him regardless of his transgressions; accusations of infidelity might be less damaging to him politically than to other politicians!) So, the prosecutors have to somehow convince a court what his intent really was, i.e. it's less about what he did and more about why he did it.
  • abigail95 4y ago
    Even worse for the intent angle is that he did it through his lawyer. Proving someone acted with illegal intent by following the advice of their lawyer seems to be an oxymoron.
    • pdpi 4y ago
      It's well understood that Cohen was Trump's fixer, so I don't think that'll be that big a hurdle.
      • overlordalex 4y ago
        It's even easier than that - Cohen already pled guilty and was convicted for this campaign finance violation. During the trial Cohen explicitly named Trump as a co-conspirator while the prosecutor decided to call him "Individual 1" in the filings
  • einpoklum 4y ago
    In criminal law, for intent, the prosecution doesn't have to prove no other intent, or what the "main intent" was. In fact, in some legal systems (perhaps the US as well) it is often enough to establish that the accused: 1. Was aware of his relevant actions 2. Was aware the actions are likely to have the relevant effect 3. Acted anyway and - again, in some legal systems - this creates a presumption of intent. The onus is then on the accused to establish that they had an entirely different intent (in which case they acted "recklessly") or was not actually aware of the consequences (in which case they acted "negligently" because they should have been aware). I am not a (US) lawyer, so I'm not sure that's the exact legal situation for Trump.
• makomk 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure there is no cap on how much Trump was allowed to spend on his own campaign; that's why US politics is filled with so many rich people spending so much on their campaigns for office (sometimes for very little effect, as happened with Bloomberg). What's capped is how much any single other individual can contribute. Also, it's probably not all that clear that the payment should count as campaigning; if I remember rightly there was some speculation at the time it first became public that Trump might've funded the payment with campaign funds and people came up with equally plausible arguments that this would've been illegal because it obviously wasn't a campaign expense. The whole thing is... probably not great grounds on which to carry out the first criminal indictment of a former US president, but the state of US politics and media in 2023 is such that outside of Trump circles the issues will be largely ignored.
  • pdpi 4y ago
    Yup, you're right: > Candidate contributions to their own campaigns are not subject to any limits. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/using-personal-funds-candidate/ https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...
    • treis 4y ago
      They're getting him on the technicality that it was not him but one of his corporations that made the payment.
      • ethbr0 4y ago
        This isn't about campaign contribution limits, it's about declaring campaign expenses. As far as I've read, it was money his campaign legally had, spent on something he could legally spend it on... that he attempted to conceal the payment for, so it wouldn't show up in campaign finance reports. Ironically, if he'd just paid it directly from campaign funds and given it an obfuscated name ("PR Services"), he'd be in much less legal trouble now.
        • 4y ago
• brutus1213 4y ago
  Not a lawyer, nor am I American. No horse in this except maybe a citizen of the world. This seems like a weak case to me. For a former president and polarizing figure, you would think the bar on prosecution would be air tight. If he goes to jail for a crime the population (or his support base) considers is trivial or if he does not get convicted, it raises Trump's stock to the stratosphere. Perhaps if he goes to jail, he can't run for office? Still .. seems very dubious based on the info in the news so far. Here is an analogy I thought of. Say my firm's database gets ransomewared. If I pay the ransom directly, that may be a particular way of accounting. But say, I pay McCohen Computer Associates to fix the problem. Why do I not book it as a computer expense? I am not an accountant but am curious how this works. Also, booking something in the wrong accounting category, doesn't seem like a very convincing charge. On the other hand, Tax and election violations are very serious.
  • ChatGTP 4y ago
    No at all a Trump fan but another one of these things that could easily backfire and make him look like a hero. It wreaks of some type of attempt to politically assassinate him before the next election. Like I said, not a fan, just kind of seems suspicious.
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      I find it interesting to consider “who would the Democrats most prefer to run against in 2024?” If the economy is weak, I think they’d rather run against Trump (who has a base that’s fiercely loyal but more narrow) rather than a GOP candidate who will pull the majority of Trump’s base but also a wider swath from the “center” population by hammering on the economy. If the economy is strong, historically it doesn’t matter much who the incumbent runs against.
      • mrguyorama 4y ago
        Those people in the "center" are so disingenuous. They "aren't republicans" but they will criticize democrats for anything and suddenly be "concerned about the economy" when gas prices raise a few cents. It's pathetic. Meanwhile the economy and government budget regularly do better under Democrats but noooooo only Democrats have to face the """"economy is doing poorly"""" nonsense.
• macinjosh 4y ago
  Except the campaign finance laws are federal and so NY has no jurisdiction on that claim. The jurisdiction that does handle that declined to prosecute so there is no crime for the NY law to apply to.
• tootie 4y ago
  Paying her to stay silent is not 100% legal when it's done for the direct benefit of political campaign and not disclosed.
• random_upvoter 4y ago
  If I'm not mistaken Obama's campaign was fined for the same offense -- non-disclosed campaign distributions. https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/07/obama-campaign-fined-big-for-hiding-donors-keeping-illegal-donations https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/07/obama-campai...
  • myvoiceismypass 4y ago
    You are mistaken, these are not the same offense.
    • random_upvoter 4y ago
      Do explain. As far as I understand the problem is that Cohen paid for the hush money, so it was essentially a campaign contribution that was not reported.
• NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  I don’t think it was the campaign that paid her, was it? I thought it was just some Trump business entity.
  • pc86 4y ago
    Yes but if the intent was to help or protect the campaign, and Trump's business paid for it (rather than the campaign or Trump personally) it's an illegal campaign donation because it's above the limit.
    • NotYourLawyer 4y ago
      Seems like a pretty thin theory for such an unprecedented case. (I mean. Imagine if the campaign HAD paid for it!) I’m all for accountability and rule of law. But I’d hope the grand jury has something a little bit better than just this.
  • cragfar 4y ago
    Cohen paid her, and then was reimbursed by a Trump Org.
• naasking 4y ago
  > The problem here is that, of course, this was just a way to make Cohen an intermediary for the process of the campaign paying Daniels. This is problem in two ways. First, it goes against the campaign spending limits, so goes against campaign laws. Second, it's a form of falsifying business records. The interesting bit is that Hillary Clinton also violated campaign finance law in a similar way for funding the Steele dossier. She was fined $8000. People are really going to have a field day with this.
• pclmulqdq 4y ago
  As I understand it, the amount that you can spend on your own campaign is unlimited (thanks to the first amendment), but the amount that other people can contribute is strictly capped due to campaign finance laws. Michael Bloomberg took advantage of this when he did his "primary blitz" in 2020. If this was actually Trump paying his own hush money via his lawyer, then it makes Michael Cohen a liar (when he said that he paid it out of his own pocket, thus admitting to violating campaign finance law), but Trump seems to not be implicated at all.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    > If this was actually Trump paying his own hush money via his lawyer The allegation is that Trump reimbursed Cohen for what had (provably) been paid to Daniels. So, as usual, in the real world things get a bit more complicated. Is that still "paying his own hush money" ? Does using an intermediate make it not so? Does using an intermediate who first uses their own funds and you later reimburse them make it not so?
    • pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Yeah, that's 100% him paying his own hush money. Your lawyer is often an extension of you in that respect - that's why a "power of attorney" document is called that. As long as it flows through agents with that kind of close arrangement, the path the money takes doesn't matter - it's coming straight from the client. For example, my patent lawyer pays for my fees at the PTAB and then puts them on my monthly bill, but puts my name (or my corporation's) down on the form as the person who paid the fee. Another commenter suggested that the real crime was that the expense was named incorrectly on the campaign's books, which makes more sense to me but also seems kind of tenuous.
• Chris2048 4y ago
  > so paying her to stay quiet is considered a campaign expense isn't this a bit of a stretch? lots of things that could "make trump look bad" (TM) might have a political consequence, but does that make them all defacto campaign related? Aren't there plenty other (personal) reasons he would pay her off unrelated to the campaign (he's done/said things unrepentantly that could equally impact his campaign, so it's not clear Trump is even motivated to pay her off for this reason).