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Everyone involved in the 2016 hush-money payments says they were campaign-related -- except Trump
By Philip Bump
March 11 at 9:39 AM
Only one year ago, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels had just begun a public fight to escape the constraints of an agreement she signed in October 2016 preventing her from discussing her relationship with President Trump. It was Daniels against an array of powerful people: The president of the United States, his pit bull personal attorney Michael Cohen, his personal legal team and, indirectly, the publisher of one of America’s best-known tabloid magazines.
Since then, the balance of power has shifted. Daniels’s representation of what happened and the context for it has been embraced by her former opponents save one: Trump himself.
This isn’t simply political score-keeping. The timing of the agreement reached with Daniels has long raised the question of motivation: Was it an effort to bury her allegations about a one-night stand with the president in order to keep it from influencing the election? If so, Cohen’s involvement, as a representative of Trump and agent of the Trump campaign, would make the payment a violation of campaign finance law, according to experts who’ve spoken with The Post.
As of Monday morning, everyone involved in the payment except Trump now says that that’s exactly why the payment was made.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/11/everyone-involved-hush-money-payments-says-they-were-campaign-related-except-trump/?utm_term=.a06042b74613