Legal contradiction of accusing Trump of campaign payment fraud

It has recently been announced the former President Trump has been indicted (criminal charges) by New York.
One of the reasons they are going after Trump is that supposedly he diverted some of his campaign money to pay for Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she allegedly had with Trump, and that this supposedly constitutes "fraud". (That's what they are claiming)

For this to be fraud, it would have to be a misuse or inappropriate use of campaign money. In other words, the payment to keep the woman quiet about the scandal would have to be seen as money being diverted to a personal cause that did not have to do with his political campaign.

Well, here's the thing with that. There is another story. The Federal Election Commision (FEC) fined the a publication company called the National Enquirer $187,500 because the company made a $150,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, as well as another former model Karen McDougal, to keep them quiet during the 2016 Presidential election. The FEC claims that this constituted an illegal campaign contribution, violating federal election campaign law.
But for this to be true, such a payment (to keep women quiet about a scandal) would have to be seen as a campaign contribution.
The FEC complaint stated that the payment was "for the purpose of influencing" the election.

Why is it that when the National Enquirer made a payment to Stormy Daniels, it was considered a campaign contribution, but when Trump (allegedly) diverted some of his campaign money to make a payment to Stormy Daniels, it was not considered a legitimate campaign expenditure?

There is a glaring logical inconsistency here.

If what the National Enquirer did was illegal, then what Trump did was not illegal.
Or if what Trump did was illegal, then what the National Enquirer did was not illegal, and they should not have been made to pay that fine.

There seems to be some hypocrisy and blatant double standards being applied here.

It's not consistent to say one of those situations is a campaign contribution and the other isn't.

But maybe they don't care, anything to go after Trump and Trump supporters. Even if the legal logic they use contradicts itself.


related thread for more background information: The problem with the case against Cohen

 

@kazenatsu

I think your facts are mistaken. Apparently there is something wrong w/paying off Ms. Daniels, if it is to hide this story bottom the voters, which is why one of the defenses that Trump's people have been using in the press, has been that this was a personal matter, done to keep Trump's wife from finding out, and having nothing to do with the election. If that is the case, and election funds were used, would seem to be a problem. But the main problems I have heard about are the way these payments were reported, in financial records, fraudulently, as having been for "legal services."

 

I think you are mistaken. Making a payment to hide a story from voters is not actually illegal.
You could personally view it as wrong, immoral, maybe a little bit unethical, but it is not illegal, nor should it be illegal, arguably.

A lot of people are too stupid to understand the difference between something being or feeling wrong and something being illegal. It's one of the common ways prosecutors can get a jury to convict even when the act committed was not actually really illegal.

This may seem unfair to you, but it is an acceptable strategy to claim one argument for a public purpose, but then use another contradictory argument for legal purposes.
And to be fair, it was not actually Trump himself who claimed the reasons why the payment was made.
(So yes, if you hire other people to do all your public relations talking for you, you can make contradictory arguments in two different situations)

In my opinion it's really a stretch to be claiming it's not really a campaign contribution because it could have served another dual purpose also.
Although of course I have no doubt a prosecutor might bring up that argument to try to convince a jury.

I think though, even if that argument were true, it would not entirely counter my argument, only partially.

The actual motivation for an act is not quite the same thing as the purpose of that act under the law.

 

You do not reply to, or perhaps notice, the logic of my arguments. Let's try one last time:
1) Trump's people are offering the defense, that this payment was not to hide this story from voters, but to keep it from Melania. If there was no problem with hiding this story from voters, how is the story from Trumpland, a defense?

2) If campaign funds were used, how is this not improper use of those funds, if it really was, as Trump's lawyers claim, for a personal expense?

3) The main thing I have heard has been that the offenses have to do with fraudulently recording this payment as "legal fees."

 

I did respond to the logic of your arguments.

Sorry if my explanation was not the most clear. I wasn't able to complete the post because this site timed me out.

As I explained, those were "Trump's people", not Trump. It's not the same thing as Trump claiming it.
I could go into a more lengthy discussion about that, if you still don't agree.
But even if, for the sake of argument, it were Trump, I still don't think that would matter. I mean, of course you could say it would make him look kind of contradictory, but it's perfectly justifiable to use a legal argument that is different and contradictory from an argument made in the public relations or business sphere.

You seem to be obsessing over "intent". I don't think intent applies, or should apply, to this type of law in the way you seem to think it does.
Trump would not need intent, he would only need for a justifiable reason to exist.

It could have been for a personal expense but, in this situation, also at the same time, it could have been a proper use of funds for the campaign.
That's kind of true for anything that involves an individual's personal image in a political campaign, isn't it?
Let me give you an example. If a someone travels, and the real reason they travelled was to go on a vacation, but at the same time it could be reasonably justified as an appropriate travel for the purpose of their campaign, then it is not fraud.

I also see some issues of nitpicking with this prosecution and these laws. Suppose an important politician has $1.3 billion in campaign money to spend and they inappropriately misspend 0.0001 percent of that money. Is it fair and reasonable to send them to prison?
I think that would make it pretty easy for government to usually be able to find some mistake and put whoever they wanted in prison. It's not really the most obviously fair.

 

Now that is a very separate sort of argument.

I'll ask you this: Why should that be illegal? The money was already declared as going into Trump's campaign spending fund, isn't that true?
The whole point of these campaign finance laws is so government knows and limits how much money both sides get. That is still true even if money that went into that campaign fund was later taken out and disguised as legal fees.

I think now we're playing a game of technical wording of the law, versus the clear intent and purpose of that law having been passed and existing.

 

DEFinning, even though I completely disagree with you, I do want to commend you on your attempt to argue this. I can see you are doing a lot of thinking and trying very hard to find any logic to counter my argument.
In this forum I often find the caliber of intellectual debate to be very low, and I'm pleasantly surprised by your argumentative skill in this thread. (From my point of view, defending the indefensible, but you seem to be doing a good job at doing it)

 

I am obsessing over nothing: if there was nothing wrong with covering up this story because of the election, then there would be no reason for them to be putting out a different story, about the "intent." They are the ones, focusing on intent. When most lawyers defending a client make arguments, these arguments normally are directed towards their client's case, and are intended to help that case.

Your thread, OTOH, seems less serious with each successive post of yours. I have now three times explained the kindergarten-level logic of, if the reason for the payoff is irrelevant, they would not be talking about the reason, as if it disproves the allegations. I am now a little curious, if you will still be unable to grasp this and, if so, what kind of nonsense reply you will come back with, next time. You've covered "it's not illegal," and saying that I'm obsessing over intent. How many more ways can you try to evade mentioning the fact-based dog of logic, with your argument's ass in his mouth?

That is such a bogus example, I don't know what else to say. Sure, some things can double as both a business and a personal expense. You don't think that means that everything does, do you? So, explain to me how hushing someone just so your wife won't find out, is a campaign expenditure. Would buying her a diamond bracelet after she found out, anyway, about the affair, also qualify as a valid use for campaign funds? Your basic way of thinking of this is utterly wrong; if Trump buys himself a jacuzzi, that is not a legitimate campaign expense.

 

We have not seen the actual charges yet, so I think you are getting ahead of yourself, with this thread. My understanding, however, is that this campaign expense, was not listed as a campaign expense-- so that is a violation of the finance rules, if Trump's campaign had accepted the matching funds, which come with a cap on spending. Since it was repaid out of Trump's own pocket, that constitutes an illegal contribution to his own campaign. Then, the records of this payment was falsely listed as "legal fees" in Trump's financial records, and the laws governing business bookkeeping are, by nature, very "technical."

 

@kazenatsu,

My counter-argument aside, I will say this much: if these charges are similar to offenses of several recent campaigns, which only paid fines, then I feel that obviously, fining is all that should have been done, in this case. However, I suspect that is not the reality, that other campaigns have had comparable violations. While that is what some, here, are claiming, these are members who have developed a reputation for their willingness to play fast & loose with the truth, so their assurances, no longer carry any weight. Also, I am hearing that there are about 30 charges, in the indictment, which I imagine is substantially more than other canpaigns have had. On top of this, I believe these indictments are not just for campaign violations, but involve Trump's business financial records, as well.

Despite all this, because Trump is an ex-President, I imagine is part of the reason why there had initially been reticence on the part of the NY DA, to bring charges. I would guess he may have looked around at other, more substantial, potential cases against Trump, and decided not to get in the way, or muddy the political waters, but just let Georgia or the DOJ, take care of things. Eventually, this may have begun feeling to Bragg, like an infield pop-fly that the pitcher feels the second baseman is going to get, but the second baseman, assumes the short stop is going to field, and so started looked like, with nobody calling it, it might drop between the three, with no making the catch.

 

I don't buy that reasoning / logic.

You seem to be trying to claim that just because Trump's public relations people put out a statement that Trump's motivation was for personal reasons, rather than campaign reasons, that that means Trump's side cannot use the legal argument that the money was justified for campaign purposes.

Even if Trump had said that himself, and we performed a futuristic mind-scan of his brain that said that he was only personally motivated by personal reasons, that would still not mean it was not legally justified for legitimate campaign reasons.

As I said before, this is not really an "intent" law, at least not one that focuses on the individual's state of mind. There just has to have existed a legitimate reason that would have seemingly justified the spending for campaign purposes. (And there was, as the FEC previously claimed in their case against the National Inquirer)

I see your attempt to point out inconsistency on Trump's side, and you are correct, there does appear to exist a logical inconsistency, but in this case, that does not translate into legal logic, like you seem to assume.

I think that is contorted legal logic.
It might be enough to convince a biased jury, but it is still a legal abuse and manipulation of the law. A prosecutor trying to get the law to mean what they want it to mean.

 

You are still misunderstanding the logic of my points. It is a multi-part argument. You are saying that Trump's legal team, pushing an argument that is completely irrelevant, doesn't mean that it is also not a lie, and not what they will maintain in court. I will forego opining on the likelihood of your own point there, because it, also, is irrelevant. Can we agree that either it was a campaign expense, or it wasn't? So then, I gave arguments showing how it would be illegal in either case. Therefore, your taking issue with just any one side of that argument, still leaves the other side.

On the possibility that, in this case, fourth time will be the charm: you say that this payment is a legal campaign expense, and there was nothing wrong with hiding a story, this way. Fine. But then the other half of my argument is:
1) Trump did not use campaign funds, but his own money (or Cohen's money, which Trump reimbursed), which would then be an illegal campaign contribution. That, btw, would be the logic behind his lawyers' arguing that this was not related to the campaign.

2) This payment was not reported for what it was.

IOW, you seem to have the very wrong idea, that if this practice of buying someone's silence is perfectly acceptible-- which my argument does not hang on, being untrue-- then Trump did no wrong. You do not follow through on the ramifications of things, such as where, in your theory of the case, the money came from. If it was a campaign expense, it should have come out of campaign funds, which would then need have been accurately recorded.

So if it was private funds-- that's bad. If it was campaign funds, misreported-- that's bad. And if this was really a private matter, not related to the campaign-- as Trump's lawyers have asserted-- then it would be very bad to use campaign funds, to pay for it. My argument takes no position, on which one of these things, is the case. My point had been that, in any scenario, there is potential crime. Are you familiar with the chess term, "checkmate?"

 

I still don't think you get it. What Trump's actual motivation was is kind of irrelevant here.

Sorry, it's not that simple.
In my opinion, you seem to be trying to create a false dichotomy.
As hypocritical and unfair as it may same to you, the argument that it either was or was not a campaign expense applies to pointing out the hypocrisy and legal inconsistency of prosecuting Trump for this, but does not similarly apply against Trump.

(I can go into more detail about this if you would like, if that seems too complicated for you to understand)

During prosecutions, whenever there is ambiguity in the law, it is general practice for the defendant to get the benefit of the doubt, rather than the prosecution.

So, ironically even though you can point out what seems to be a glaring inconsistency, it's not totally hypocritical for Trump to argue that it could both be seen as a campaign expense in one situation (in the legal arena) but not a campaign expense in another situation. And if Trump's side wants to change the argument for whatever best suits them at that time, so what?

This isn't really reality or morality we are dealing with (which would be existentialist and unchangeable), this is a legal argument involving an individual's right to be able to do something.

It can be both a personal expense and a campaign expense. I don't see why you have a problem understanding that. The only possible problem would be if it were only a personal expense and clearly not a justifiable campaign expense.


Now, totally hypothetically speaking, if Trump had two separate legal cases against him, and in one of those cases to defend himself he had to argue that something was a only a campaign contribution, and then in the other case, that involved something nearly identical, he had to argue that it was entirely not a campaign contribution, then you would be correct, that would be logically inconsistent, the same as the logical inconsistency I pointed out between the prosecution against Trump and the fine issued against the National Inquirer. However, this hypothetical is not exactly the case in reality.

 

And that's true (separate from the issue of campaign finance). That's kind of just a legal technicality in the state's law. And besides, the 2 year statute of limitations already expired on that (the incident occurred all the way back in 2016), so the court was wrong to indict Trump for that.

They are indicting Mr Trump, charging him with a misdemeanor crime, for a wrong entry in a wrong column on a spreadsheet. Let that sink in.

 

I think when it comes to the legal issue of whether Trump committed campaign finance "fraud", the question is whether it actually morally constituted fraud for Trump to take campaign money and spend it on a payment to keep a woman quite about a scandal.
(Now it's not entirely clear that Trump actually did that, since the alleged payment was made through his lawyer Cohen, but let's assume for the sake of argument that Trump made the payment, to just focus on that one issue)

The question, I think, would be could that be seen as a legitimate expense for the campaign. And maybe the more moral question (which likely could play into the legal question) is would the donors (obviously Trump supporters) who donated money to the campaign have approved of that payment for that purpose.

I think it's fair to assume (and hopefully you will agree with me) that 99% of donors to the Trump campaign do not disapprove of that payment (meaning it does not constitute fraud), and furthermore none of them want to see Trump prosecuted over this.
If they were going after Trump for this law, then they seem to be basing it on an interpretation of the wording of the law, rather than the clear and obvious purpose of the law existing.

 

The major issue with campaign funds is that the money be recorded if it goes into campaign funds. Recording of how exactly that money is spent on specific things is only of secondary importance.

The money was already fully recorded going into the campaign funds.

It seems a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, because if Cohen had simply made the hush money payment himself, without it being compensated to him from Trump's campaign funds, then it likely could have been viewed as "an illegal campaign contribution" from Cohen, and Cohen might have been fined just like the National Inquirer was.

The whole purpose and point of these laws is to try to make sure that there are some limits on how much money goes into each person's campaign spending.
If a secret payment is made coming out of the already declared campaign funds, it doesn't circumvent the purpose and intent of these laws.

 

1) Your argument is being made in utter ignorance-- why not wait a couple of days, until we see the actual indictment?

2) Your attempted rationalizations are clueless. There is no indication, of which I am aware, that this payment was made with legally reported campaign funds. Sorry, reporting contributions, is not just a "technicality." So your arguments start from fallacies, and misinformation.

If you want to continue to debate this with me, start from the assumption that Trump used his own money for this, and that it was never reported as a campaign contribution.

Your basis, for this statement; IOW-- link?

 

If that is true, then I may very much be in error and misinformed about the whole situation.
But, I will point out, if the payment came from Trump, and did not come out of campaign funds from donors, then it could not be fraud.

Can we agree with that?

(There are really two separate possible components to these campaign finance laws, fraud involving inappropriately spending campaign money on personal expenses, and then excessive or unreported spending, which is something different from what I am referring to by "fraud")


According to the FEC, candidate financial contributions to their own campaigns are not subject to any limits, but they must be reported.

Keep in mind that Cohen was paid out of Trump's campaign funds, so that part of it was recorded and reported.

Cohen initially claimed he had not been reimbursed for the payment to Stormy Daniels, that it came out of his own money. Then he later changed his story while being prosecuted and put under pressure. The legal issue hinged on whether the money that had been paid to Cohen was only intended to compensate him for the legal services he provided, or whether Trump directed him to make the payment to the woman and reimbursed him for it.

 

Since I am not at all aware of the reporting requirements, either in running a political campaign, or for paying off a prostitute to keep quiet, I would have no way of knowing that fraud could not be involved, on Trump's method. Actually, I am now thinking I recall hearing that the fraud was in Trump's reporting it as a business expense!

If this was the case, do you agree that this would be fraud?

 

The law does not specifically mention any reporting requirements when it comes to paying to keep someone quiet about a scandal. So that part is open to interpretation by people and the courts.

The question of whether that specifically constitutes "campaign spending", I think, does not entirely have a clear answer.

 

If that were true, then it would indeed be an instance of minor fraud.

Or it could be.

But even that's not entirely clear, because money may have been given to Cohen for a combined list of purposes: paying off Stormy Daniels, services provided to the political campaign, and services provided to Trump's business.

So the issue would be trying to sort out what money exactly was for each purpose.
Paying off Stormy Daniels could have fallen under the category of political campaign expenses, and even several of Trump's political campaign expenses could have fallen under the category of business expenses, but obviously the specific payment to Stormy Daniels would probably not fit into the category of business expenses.

And maybe Trump could try to argue that it did constitute a "business expense" of sorts, since his personal reputation could very much affect his business. (Trump had a huge personal brand name image on many of his businesses)

It sounds to me more like that Trump was playing kind of fast and loose with the tax deductions for business expenses. Almost more like a highly questionable grey zone than a clear and obvious crime.