donnie wants us all to know he did the proper, ethical, legal thing.

[unblock]

it was his money, not the campaign's money.

he wants us to understand that it was his money, because when you're paying off a porn star you cheated on your wife with and want to keep her story secret so that you can be sure the voting public doesn't find out the truth about what a lying, impulsive, cheater you are, and then when you're creating a phony paper trail of invoices to disguise the origin of the payments, it's important to do the ethical thing and use your own money, not the campaign's money.

... because that would be wrong.

[Dave in VA]

1. Too funny!

Hope someone uses this for their news show tonight. This is perfect!

[Laffy Kat]

5. Sadly, I think both Colbert and Seth Meyers are on vacay.

Maybe Daily Show?

[PatSeg]

12. Nope

The Daily Show is running episodes with clips from past shows. Samantha Bee is new tonight and then there is Bill Maher on Friday. What a week to take a vacation! They must be losing their minds.

[Squaredeal]

2. So did he pay out of pocket...

or through one of his companies. My guess is the later and he wrote it off as a legitimate business expense of his firm to avoid paying any taxes on the transaction, which is illegal.

[unblock]

10. wouldn't surprise me if he later reimbursed himself from his "charitable" foundation....

there's gotta be a tax fraud angle in there as well....

[Nevilledog]

3. Perfect!

[Freethinker65]

4. Trump admits he is vulnerable to blackmail and willing to be a puppet to avoid being exposed.

[meadowlander]

6. Shame that makes it an illegal campaign donation though...

[Corvo Bianco]

7. Wurd up. Straight honorable.

[lapfog_1]

8. and, legally, it doesn't matter.

if the intention is to silence the playmate and/or the porn star to avoid the news story in order to win an election, it is still an illegal campaign contribution.

[unblock]

9. so funny. he's so used to using his charities fund's for personal use and lying about it

he has to be so confused.

"wait, you mean the proper thing would have been to use the fund's money to pay off the porn star?
using my personal money for that was the wrong thing to do?
but if it was my charity, then using the fund's money is the wrong thing and i have to use my personal money for that?
it's all so confusing!"

[lapfog_1]

11. he could have paid them off BEFORE announcing his candidacy

using his personal funds... routed through his lawyers bogus LLC

And THAT would have been "legal" (assuming all taxes are paid and income reported, etc)

Timing is everything.