Day 692: Forget Cohen sentencing, the real story Wednesday is the National Enquirer confirming their part in Trump conspiracy
Donald Trump and his payoffs to various women right before the election: that story has embroiled Trump and many around him for over a year. That issue, in part, led his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to receive a three-year federal prison sentence Wednesday for campaign finance violations.
Trump has dismissed the payoffs as nothing more than “simple private transaction[s]” that have nothing to do with his 2016 campaign. The issue is that if the payments are related to the campaign — as the facts seem to dictate, Cohen’s charges allege and Cohen’s plea concedes — then the “simple private transactions” become federal crimes.
That conspiracy got substantially more fleshed out Wednesday. As part of a non-prosecution agreement, American Media, Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, surprisingly admitted to certain facts related to one payoff.
AMI admitted that it was coordinating with the Trump campaign when it paid $150,000 to a former Playboy model to suppress a story immediately before the 2016 election regarding allegations about an affair between that model and Trump.
In addition, AMI agreed to cooperate with any additional investigation that stems from such facts.
Taking the Cohen plea and AMI non-prosecution agreement together and the facts become quite clear: there was a conspiracy between — at least — the Trump campaign, Trump himself, Cohen and AMI to pay off at least two women. Those payments were made to prevent the women’s stories regarding embarrassing affairs with Trump from being revealed to the American public. The stories were suppressed in an effort to prevent harm to Trump’s presidential campaign and aid his chances of winning. Because the payments exceeded campaign spending limits and violated reporting laws, they were criminal in nature.
The government and AMI likely made a deal for many reasons. The First Amendment protections afforded to publishers, including AMI, would make bringing an actionable case difficult. For AMI, the facts were already largely revealed, their reputation has already been dinged by the matter (even by tabloid standards), they completely avoid the possibility of liability, and they can save substantial costs from a protracted legal fight against an entity with bottomless pockets and a long memory. Overall, a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for acknowledging factual issues made sense for both sides.
For Trump, Wednesday was a disaster, as the scope of a criminal conspiracy became fully fleshed out. It appears the only thing keeping Trump from being indicted in this matter, at least for the moment, is his residence in the White House and questions regarding whether a sitting president can be indicted.
692 days in, 770 to go
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