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B in the announcement of the sentencing of former Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, by the Department of Justice, is a brief point that could threaten the defense of Trump was accused of violating campaign finance laws.
American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer newspaper, which allowed Cohen to recover Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, revealed that "the purpose of this transaction is the same." influencing the election. "
Three-year sentence imposed on Cohen for violation of campaign finance law, tax evasion and lying to obtain a loan indicates that prosecutors have probably considered Cohen's intentions as illicit If Trump actually ordered Cohen to negotiate the agreements with Daniels and McDougal, this is now seriously hindering his best criminal defense: the previous John Edwards.
In 2011, Edwards was faced with similar charges for payments made to his mistress by private donors during his failed presidential bid, he was acquitted on the grounds that the payments were intended to conceal the case to his wife for personal reasons and reputation, and not to the public for political reasons.What is Cohen – or at least, which led him to plead guilty rather than to defend the same defense as Edwards – was the assertion of AMI that the Daniels and McDougal agreements were intended to influence the election. This could hinder Trump's ability to make the same argument.
For his part, the President tweeted on the outcome of the Edwards case in 2012, demonstrating that he was directing payments, he had the mens rea by intentionally directing his business. lawyer to violate the federal law. Once again, we still do not know how much Trump knew and when. But AMI President and CEO David Pecker met Cohen and "at least one other member of the campaign" in 2015 with the specific purpose of discussing "and helping the campaign to be identified [negative stories about that presidential candidate’s relationships with women] in order to buy them and to avoid their publication "
Campaign finance laws as a whole are generally silent, ineffective and easy to contravene. If Trump actually ordered Cohen to rape them, it is probably not an impenetrable offense, nor comparable to the initial accusation of the Democrats that he allegedly collaborated with a foreign dictatorship for to rig American elections. But if Trump ordered Cohen to negotiate payments to Daniels and McDougal, there is now further evidence suggesting that he could have done so with criminal intent.
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