Trump argues he's in the clear after a bombshell from his personal lawyer seemed to incriminate him
- President Donald Trump denied using campaign cash to pay off a porn star during the 2016 presidential election after his personal lawyer seemed to incriminate him.
- On Wednesday Trump's personal defense lawyer Rudi Giuliani said Trump knew about and ultimately paid for his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to give $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels.
- If Trump knew about the payment and used campaign cash to pay back Cohen, he could be guilty of a criminal abuse of campaign finances.
- But, if Trump's people paid Clifford off for a reason unrelated to the election, or used his personal money, it could be perfectly legal.
President Donald Trump denied using campaign cash to pay off a porn star, or any doing anything wrong at all during the 2016 presidential election, the morning after his personal lawyer seemed to incriminate him.
In a series of in a series of tweets on Thursday, Trump argued that he had acted properly despite comments a few hours before by Rudi Giuliani.
Giuliani said Trump was aware of, and reimbursed, his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment Cohen made to the adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford shortly before the 2016 US election.
Cohen previously said that he, not Trump, paid Clifford. The distinction could have important legal implications.
If Trump made the payment to help his campaign, then Giuliani's statement "puts Trump on the hook for criminal violation of campaign finance laws," according to Paul Seamus Ryan, the vice president of litigation and policy for Common Cause. If Trump made the payment for another reason, he could be in the clear.
"Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA," Trump tweeted.
After adding that NDAs were "very common" among wealthy people, Trump said that Clifford had violated the agreement, and he would seek damages from her in arbitration.
"Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction," Trump tweeted, perhaps in an effort to diffuse speculation that he broke the law.
On Wednesday, Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor who spent 12 years at the DOJ told Business Insider's Sonam Seth that Trump may not have broken the law.
"If Trump himself paid Cohen back, he could make the argument that he was doing it to hide the affair from Melania," said Cramer.
He added: "That wouldn't constitute a political contribution and it gives Trump some cover, because the fact that he's had affairs is hardly a revelation and it's certainly not criminal."