Trump’s Ex-Lawyer Didn’t Violate Campaign Finance Laws, and Neither Did the President. Robert Khuzami, the Attorney for the Southern District of New York, contends that hush money for a mistress can constitute a campaign contribution; his theory is flawed, writes Hans von Spakovsky:
FECA (52 U.S.C. 30114 (b)(2)) specifically says that campaign-related expenses do not include any expenditures “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.”
These payments were relatively small given Trump’s net worth—the kind of nuisance settlement that celebrities often make to protect their reputations, especially when faced with claims that will cost far more to defend than making a quick payoff without all of the bad publicity that usually accompanies such cases. Given Trump’s celebrity status, the potential liability to these women existed “irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.”
As Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said, the payment to Daniels was made “to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family” and “it would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.”
On the one previous occasion that the Justice Department tried to argue that hush money payments to a mistress were a “campaign-related” expense, a jury also did not appear to buy the government’s theory. In the unsuccessful prosecution of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, campaign donors made payments to Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter, a videographer who was actually working on his presidential campaign. […]
Last year, it was reported that Congress has secretly paid out over $17 million to settle close to 300 cases by staffers claiming sexual and other forms of harassment and discrimination.
Such payments are obviously being made—in secret—to protect the reputations of senators and congressmen, many of whom will and have run for re-election. Does this mean that they are using taxpayer funds to pay campaign expenses? Is Khuzami going to open up investigations of all these settlements and all these members of Congress?
[Hans von Spakovsky, “Trump’s Ex-Lawyer Didn’t Violate Campaign Finance Laws, and Neither Did the President,” The Daily Signal, December 11]
