Here us another example of how to show a crime has been committed.
We have testimony under oath to law enforcement that Individual-1 directed payment to 2 persons to influence the outcome of an election.
https://www.axios.com/michael-cohen...emo-d664b3a5-81ff-413a-ba3a-024d8cda1815.html
Page 11 of the charging memo.
US campaign law has several aspects.
52 U.S. Code § 30104
Requires that a campaign for President file monthly reports of expenditures. (a)3(A)
Requires that a candidate report any use of personal funds Section (a)6(A)
Requires that a campaign report any loans to the campaign (b)3(e)
252 U.S. Code § 30116
Limits contributions to $2,000 (a)1(A)
Any expenditure made in coordination or by direction of candidate is a contribution (a)7(A)
The undisputed facts are as follows:
Cohen made a payment to Stormy Daniels and coordinated another payment to McDougal.
Cohen admits those payments were to influence the election
Cohen claims those payments were made at the behest of Individual-1.
Individual-1 was a candidate for President and required to file monthly campaign reports.
Cohen was repaid at a later date for the payments he made. (This would be considered a loan under Campaign law.)
The payments to Cohen were hidden as to their true nature by claiming them as legal work that was not performed.
Likely facts:
The Trump campaign didn't report the payment to Daniels as a campaign expenditure.
The Trump campaign didn't report a loan from Cohen for the payment to Daniels.
Trump knew about the payment but didn't tell his campaign treasurer.
This leaves us with the following possible violations of Campaign finance law:
The campaign didn't report the expenditure of the payment to Daniels
The campaign accepted a donation in excess of $2,000 when Cohen made the payment.
The campaign accepted a loan from Cohen and didn't report it.
Most campaign violations, and a campaign violation is breaking the law, result in a civil fine.
However campaign finance law does allow for this:
We have the following criminal penalties found in 52 U.S. Code § 30109
This leaves with the following.
Cohen made payments to Daniels and McDougal.
Trump knew about the payments and likely directed that they happen.
Cohen made an illegal contribution to the campaign when he made the payments.
Trump's only defense for the crime is that he didn't knowingly or willfully commit the offense and he is willing to pay the civil penalties.
Would you care to bet on Trump not talking to anyone else about needing to keep them quiet in order to win? If I were Trump, I would be sweating that.
The facts do lead to another possible crime. The payments to Cohen may be a violation of tax law depending on how they were accounted for by the Trump organization. You can write off lawyer fees but not payments to mistresses. By claiming they were lawyers fees Trump may have committed tax fraud on $420,000 of income. I would hazard a guess that this is already being looked into as part of the ongoing investigation.