Is Giuliani just adding to Trump's legal woes?
Title: "Giuliani comments on Stormy payment raise legal questions"
https://apnews.com/f84d92ab647142b0ac7b34d001baf7c7Extract: "Giuliani’s insistence the money had nothing to do with the campaign is complicated by the fact that Daniels’ silence was secured just days before the 2016 presidential election, and as Trump was dealing with the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women.
If the payment were wholly personal, said Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the University of California, Irvine, there would be no campaign finance violations.
But Giuliani’s argument that the payment was unrelated to the campaign appears to be “pretty far-fetched” given the timing, said Andrew Herman, an attorney specializing in campaign finance law at Miller & Chevalier.
“Certainly, the argument that the government will make is that the $130,000 payment from Michael Cohen to Daniels was a loan to the Trump campaign to keep these allegations secret obviously and then Trump paying Cohen back would be a campaign expenditure” — a loan and expenditure that should have been disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, he said.
Larry Noble, general counsel of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, agreed the timing “is still strong evidence of it being campaign related,” as is the reimbursement.
“And if the money was funneled through the law firm as legal fees, as Giuliani suggested, it shows an intent to cover up the source of the funds,” he said.
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All campaign expenses, including payments and loans, are supposed to be disclosed to the FEC.
Hasen said the question before Wednesday had been whether Cohen had made an unreported contribution to the Trump campaign exceeding legal limits.
“If this is true, then it looks like Cohen may have made an unreported loan to the campaign rather than a contribution,” he said. That could be good news for Cohen, because it would have been up to the president or his campaign to report the loan, not up to Cohen."
