- The payment had nothing to do with the campaign, or
- Cohen had nothing to do with the campaign.
Neither seems at all likely.
New evidence the Stormy Daniels payment may have violated election law
NBC News on Friday reported that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime ally and attorney, had used a Trump Organization email address as he worked to secure the payment to Daniels.
..Trumporg.com redirects to Trump.com. The domain is registered to the Trump Organization. It is, in other words, an email address that belongs to the Trump Organization — an asset of the company.
.. That means that federal election law was almost certainly violated... Daniels’s lawsuit asserts Trump learned she was talking to media outlets shortly after a number of women had come forward to rebut Trump’s denial during the Oct. 10, 2016, presidential debate that he had groped women as he had implied in the famous “Access Hollywood” tape. Hearing that she might tell her story, too, Trump “sought to silence” her, “thus helping to ensure he won the Presidential Election.”
.. The email from the bank to Cohen does not prove that company funds were used to pay Daniels, which Noble told us last month would itself be illegal. Just using that email address is its own problem.
.. even if what happened with Daniels was the sort of thing that was very common for Cohen as part of his duties, the Daniels scenario could still be a contribution if Cohen understood it would aid Trump’s electoral effort.
.. he used his Trump Organization email for any number things.
“I sent emails from the Trump Org email address to my family, friends as well as Trump business emails,” he told the network. “I basically used it for everything. I am certain most people can relate.”
.. Cohen told the network that the funds used to pay Daniels “were taken from my home equity line.” The money, that is, came directly from Cohen. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Cohen told others that he had not been repaid for his investment immediately — meaning that he had, in effect, made a loan to the campaign of some duration by covering this cost.
.. The only way in which Cohen could have paid the $130,000 without having violated campaign finance laws is if he were totally independent of the campaign and, as a private individual, decided to give Daniels the money to buy her silence.
.. To assume that no campaign finance laws were broken means assuming either that: