How the campaign finance charges against Michael Cohen implicate Trump

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Politics Analysis
How the campaign finance charges against Michael Cohen implicate Trump


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/08/21/how-the-campaign-finance-charges-against-michael-cohen-may-implicate-trump/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e418a24ca247

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The details of Michael Cohen's guilty plea

President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Aug. 21 to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Philip Bump

August 21 at 8:35 PM

In a Lower Manhattan courtroom Tuesday, President Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen directly implicated his former boss in a scheme to cover up alleged affairs Trump had with a former Playboy model and an adult film actress to prevent them from being revealed before the 2016 election.

Standing before Judge William H. Pauley III, Cohen admitted guilt on two criminal counts: willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

The first count dealt with Cohen’s negotiation of an agreement with an unnamed company — the context of the government’s delineation of charges makes clear that it’s American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer — to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000. That payment was aimed at preventing her from being able to share her story of a year-long affair with Trump with any other media outlet.

The second count addressed the infamous payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, negotiated by Cohen shortly before the election. That payment, of $130,000, was made with funds drawn from a home equity line of credit obtained by Cohen in 2015. That line of credit was itself obtained fraudulently according to another of the guilty pleas Cohen entered on Tuesday.

To the layperson, this likely sounds as a slightly more noxious example of business as usual in politics. It’s not. Cohen made that very clear when he stood up to accept guilt for his actions, in two phrases.

The payment to McDougal was made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” he said, adding that it was made “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.” The Daniels payment was similarly made “in coordination with and at the direction of the same candidate” and for the same reason.

Those points are important. As we noted when the Daniels payment was first reported, making a payment of $130,000 to bury a story is of dubious legality in the abstract. How and if it violates the law depends on the relationship of the person making the payment to the campaign and whether such payments were in the standard course of practice of his business.

Cohen’s sworn assertions in court make clear that he was acting on behalf of the campaign with the aim of aiding the candidate’s election. This wasn’t Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen making yet another payment to yet another woman — it was Cohen on behalf of the campaign making a campaign-related expenditure. Had the Trump campaign paid the $130,000 with legally contributed donations and reported it, it would have been perfectly legal, however politically problematic. It didn’t.

In fact, Cohen was repaid by the Trump Organization, according the government’s delineation of his crimes. Cohen, it reads, submitted a series of invoices to “a Manhattan-based real estate company” where he had once worked. Those invoices were meant, among other things, to repay him for the money he gave to Daniels and occurred over the course of 2017. Those payments were identified inside the company as being for a legal retainer.

The situation with the payment to McDougal is even more complex........................

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