My Front-Row Seat to Stormy's Shakedown

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.

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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.

Ed Morrissey

LaCorte ran FoxNews.com at the time (2016), hence his "front-row seat". It's worth reading in full, especially to see why LaCorte observes wisely that "there is no one to root for" in l'affaire Stormy. She's not a victim, neither is Michael Cohen, and neither is Trump in relation to his connection to Daniels and Cohen. The trial is a travesty, which LaCorte notes is a separate issue, while noting that the wrong person is getting tried for this exchange. 

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