Whether he actually had sex with her or not is irrelevant. He issued a hush-money payment to her not to talk about the encounter, and then committed business fraud to cover up that payment, and because it was during an election, that also constituted election fraud.
This is the whole thing that’s ridiculous to me. It’s not the fact that he had sex with her, it’s not even the fact that he paid her to shut the fuck up, it’s the fact that he covered it up and committed fraud. He could have just boasted about it publicly and it’s unlikely anyone would have cared.
I believe that attempting to hush her in order to affect the voting is one of the 34 charges
It is, but the crux of the felony charges stem from the fact that he “committed fraud with the intent to commit or conceal another crime.”
Exactly. If he just paid her out of his own pocket, he wouldn’t have any legal issues. This whole thing is a perfect example of penny wise, pound foolish.
The defense argument is that there was no sex, so the payments to Michael Cohen were not hush money but legal feels and Cohen acted independently. So arguing there was no sex supports their defense.
It’s stupid and not what happened.
Good timing, “athlete”
Any headline that runs with “(figure) says” is an automatic skip for me, but athlete says is about as bad as it gets. That’s right up there with deckhand says or house painter says.
It’s an anonymous golfer. It all happened during a golf tournament
