The perfect Stormy

Have the latest Stormy Daniels revelations put President Trump in legal peril?

Stormy Daniels is ready to talk.
(Image credit: AP Photo/The Advocate,Travis Spradling)

With the impeccable strategic insight and forethought we've come to expect from those working for President Trump, his personal lawyer Michael Cohen issued a statement this week that appeared to implicate him in a crime. "In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford," Cohen wrote, referring to the adult film actress who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly."

Why does that implicate him in a crime? Because since the $130,000 was intended to buy Daniels' silence just weeks before the election about an affair she allegedly had with Trump in 2006, it almost certainly constituted an in-kind campaign contribution. And you aren't allowed to donate $130,000 to someone else's campaign, no matter how much you admire his gold-plated apartment and luxurious, flowing mane. The payment wasn't reported on the Trump campaign's filings to the Federal Election Commission, which would mean that laws on both contribution limits and reporting were violated.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.