Donald Trump’s attorney is in new trouble at the worst possible time
Yesterday, Robert Mueller indicted an attorney involved with the Trump-Russia scandal for having misled investigators. The attorney had no particular connection to Donald Trump, but it was a warning shot at Trump’s legal team: play it by the book or you’ll be indicted too. That means Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen has picked the worst possible time to get himself into new trouble with regard to one of Trump’s scandals.
Last week we learned that former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal had an affair with Donald Trump and then sold her story exclusively to the National Enquirer during the election. What she didn’t know was that the Enquirer, which is run by a close friend of Trump, was buying the story in order to bury it and make sure she could never tell it. That’s not a crime under the law unless the money trail is illegal in and of itself, but that part leads to a problem for Cohen.
Here’s how the Wall Street Journal now says the McDougal-Enquirer deal went down: “Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen was in communication with AMI Chief Executive David Pecker and the company’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard, during the course of negotiations for Ms. McDougal to sell her story to the National Enquirer.” (link). This confirms that Trump’s team was actively working with the tabloid newspaper to kill off McDougal’s ability to tell her story. That’s incredibly slimy, but still not necessarily illegal – until you follow the money.
Donald Trump appears to have used campaign funds to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their affair. Because that’s illegal, Michael Cohen tried to take the fall by claiming that he made the payoff out of his own pocket without Trump’s involvement, a claim that no one believes. Now comes the question of how the National Enquirer got the money to pay off Karen McDougal for her story. If that also involved campaign funds, then Cohen is in serious trouble. And now we know that Robert Mueller is going after Trump-Russia attorneys who commit any sort of crimes.
