Ethics chief knocks Trump over Stormy Daniels payment

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

The Office of Government Ethics on Wednesday said a payment made in 2016 by President Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney to an adult film actress should have been included on the president's financial disclosure form that was filed last year.

Trump's most recent disclosure form, a 92-page document released Wednesday by the OGE, showed the president reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen in 2017 for his $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump.

The release provides the firmest proof yet of Trump’s involvement in the slow-brewing scandal around the “hush money” payment.

"In the interest of transparency, while not required to be disclosed as 'reportable liabilities' on Part 8, in 2016 expenses were incurred by one of Donald J. Trump's attorneys, Michael Cohen," reads a footnote on page 45 of Trump's form for the 2017 calendar year. "Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and Mr. Trump fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017."

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/16/federal-ethics-office-says-trump-should-have-disclosed-stormy-daniels-payment-last-year-591886

[wolfie001]

1. Donald Dump the lying chump

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Really! Liar liar liar, pants on fire!!! nt

[Lil Missy]

3. LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!!

[bluestarone]

4. RUMPY lying from from the minute he took the oath!!!

And continues for the whole year!! He will continue lying for the next 3 years! with the blessings of ALL the repubs!!!!

[riversedge]

5. "All the evidence strongly indicates that Trump lied on his previous financial disclosure form."

Walter Shaub, the former head of OGE who is now the senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, said he is “heartened” that Apol flagged Trump’s disclosure errors to the Justice Department.

“If DOJ investigates and determines that president Trump knew of his debt to Cohen when he filed last year’s report, there will be reason to suspect that his omission of the debt from last year’s report was ‘knowing and willful,’ which would be a crime,” Shaub, who resigned in July 2017, said in a written statement. “No one from the Trump camp asked OGE last year whether the debt was reportable and that, instead, President Trump’s attorney asked OGE to allow him to be the first filer in history to be excused from the obligation to certify that his report was true.”

Apol’s letter to the Justice Department is “highly unusual,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the non-profit watchdog group Public Citizen.

“It’s unprecedented,” Holman said. “All the evidence strongly indicates that Trump lied on his previous financial disclosure form.”

Apol wrote the letter in connection to a complaint from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan watchdog group that asked the DOJ and OGE to probe whether the payment should have been reported on last year's form and whether the failure to do so was knowing and willful.

CREW on Wednesday asked the Justice Department for a criminal investigation into the omission, with Executive Director Noah Bookbinder saying that failure to properly disclose ethics information carries civil and criminal penalties, and willfully making a false statement to the government can be punishable by up to five years in prison.

“There is substantial evidence that President Trump had knowledge of the loan when he filed his public financial disclosures last year, despite his failure to report it,” Bookbinder said. “If the department is not already investigating the president’s failure to disclose the loan last year, it should open an investigation immediately.”................................