If he was telling the truth last Thursday when he insisted to reporters that he had knowledge of the $130,000 payment made on his behalf by his lawyer Michael Cohen, then it goes a long way towards vindicating Daniels and her attorneys in their claim that the nondisclosure agreement is void. This means that like the rest of the American people she is free to say, write, or perform anything she likes about the president. The quickie memoir would write itself. There could be an HBO or Amazon original series or Stormy: The Musical on Broadway.
If, on the other hand, Trump was lying last week and he was in fact notified of the payment made with Cohen’s money and approved of it, he is probably in what legal experts refer to technically as “deep trouble.” The large payout was an undisclosed contribution to his presidential campaign that exceeded the cap on individual donations by more than $100,000. There are also possible tax implications for such a large transaction and even the risk of Trump and Cohen running afoul of blackmail statutes. Even if Trump happened to use his own funds to reimburse Cohen, who used a Trump Organization email address in his communication with Daniels, the contribution, while not in excess of federal limits, was still undisclosed. “It’s the John Edwards prosecution on steroids,” one credentialed wag put it on Twitter.
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