Ever since the news broke that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to finance laws and swore that candidate Donald Trump directed him to do so, I have been reviewing the morass of rules and laws that govern campaign finance.
I have been teaching and practicing criminal law for more than a half century, and yet, I have to acknowledge that I am having difficulty understanding the laws as they relate to the allegations made by Cohen against President Trump.
So if candidate Trump paid hush money to his two accusers, there would be no violation of any campaign or other laws.
To be sure, if he did so for the purpose of helping his campaign - as distinguished from helping his marriage - his campaign would have to disclose any such contribution, and failure to do so might be a violation of a campaign law, but the payments themselves would be entirely lawful.
If Cohen was merely acting as Trump's lawyer and advancing Trump's payments, with an expectation of repayment, then it would be hard to find a campaign finance crime other than failure to report by the campaign.
Failure to report all campaign contributions is fairly common in political campaigns.
As a civil libertarian who voted and campaigned for, and contributed to, Hillary Clinton, I am critical as well of efforts to stretch these laws so as to target a president against whom I voted.
http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/403072-did-president-trump-violate-campaign-finance-laws
I have been teaching and practicing criminal law for more than a half century, and yet, I have to acknowledge that I am having difficulty understanding the laws as they relate to the allegations made by Cohen against President Trump.
So if candidate Trump paid hush money to his two accusers, there would be no violation of any campaign or other laws.
To be sure, if he did so for the purpose of helping his campaign - as distinguished from helping his marriage - his campaign would have to disclose any such contribution, and failure to do so might be a violation of a campaign law, but the payments themselves would be entirely lawful.
If Cohen was merely acting as Trump's lawyer and advancing Trump's payments, with an expectation of repayment, then it would be hard to find a campaign finance crime other than failure to report by the campaign.
Failure to report all campaign contributions is fairly common in political campaigns.
As a civil libertarian who voted and campaigned for, and contributed to, Hillary Clinton, I am critical as well of efforts to stretch these laws so as to target a president against whom I voted.
http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/403072-did-president-trump-violate-campaign-finance-laws
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