Stormy's actions were textbook extortion, which, unlike records violations, is an honest-to-goodness felony in New York.

Team Stormy wasn’t after a Pulitzer. They were after a payday, and they were using the media as leverage to force Trump’s hand in the final stretch before Election Day.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer, had already promised to pay Stormy $130,000 to keep her mouth shut about the alleged fling from a decade earlier. But he was stalling on cutting the check as negotiations dragged on. She was smart enough to know that Trump often stalled payments forever, and that if, as most expected, he lost the 2016 race, she’d never see a penny.

So, Stormy’s crew started shopping the story to outlets like us at Fox, Slate, and others. They knew we would contact the campaign for a response, which we did, and that it would ramp up the pressure on Cohen to finally pay up.