According to a legal expert and former member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), prosecutors at the Manhattan DA’s office won’t have much legal footing when they indict former President Donald Trump for violating the campaign finance law.
“If the state charges are based on an alleged violation of federal campaign finance law, then the Manhattan Attorney’s Office is way off the mark,” Hans von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital.
Von Spakovsky’s comments came shortly after Trump said Saturday that he expects to be arrested Tuesday, amid reports that Manhattan prosecutors are preparing an indictment over alleged hush money payments Trump made as a presidential candidate in 2016.
Former US President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on August 6, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
TRUMP SAYS ‘ILLEGAL LEAKS’ INDICATE HE WILL BE ARRESTED TUESDAY
“NOW, ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY OFFICE WHICH HAS ALLOWED TO SET NEW RECORDS IN VIOLENT CRIME AND Whose LEADER IS FINANCED BY GEORGE SOROS, SHOW THAT NO CRIME CAN BE PROVED AND BASED ON THIS AN OLD (& FULL) BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) MÄRCHEN, THE FAR & WAY LEADING REPUBLIC CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE ARRESTED TUESDAY NEXT WEEK. [sic]Trump posed to his Truth Social account.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will reportedly be meeting with law enforcement officials next week to discuss the logistics of a possible indictment stemming from a year-long investigation into Trump’s alleged hush money scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels.
In the closing weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen sent Daniels $130,000 to prevent her from disclosing her alleged 2006 affair with Trump, who has denied the affair. Trump then repaid Cohen.
Former President Donald Trump confirmed news of his possible arrest Saturday in all caps in a lengthy Truth Social post. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
TRUMP RECEIVED “NO NOTIFICATION” EXCEPT “ILLEGAL LEAKS” ABOUT POSSIBLE ARREST NEXT WEEK, SPOKESMAN SAYS
It has been widely speculated that Trump could be charged with overseeing the misrecognition of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records as “legal expenses.”
Prosecutors are also expected to charge Trump with violating campaign finance laws by arranging the payments to buy Daniel’s silence weeks before the 2016 election. However, experts have questioned the legal justification behind such charges.
“Compensation for a harassment claim is not a federal campaign expense,” said von Spakovsky, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “In no event shall the state attorney’s office have the authority to prosecute a violation of federal campaign funding.”
Such cases, he argues, fall within the province of the FEC, where he served as commissioner, or the US Department of Justice, explaining that both agencies have known the facts for years but have chosen not to prosecute Trump .
Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, speaks on April 16. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
THE OFFICE OF MANHATTAN DA “REQUESTED TO MEET” WITH THE LEGAL ENFORCEMENTS BEFORE A POSSIBLE TRUMP INdictment
“So the relevant federal authorities did not consider it a violation,” said von Spakovsky, who has been following the case for years.
2018, von Spakovsky wrote that payment Daniels appeared to be an “annoying agreement” that celebrities often make, especially when faced with the risk of making a false or lewd claim.
“Critics of the president claim this was not just a campaign issue that should have been reported, but a potentially illegal loan from Cohen. But the settlement was ultimately paid out of Trump’s personal funds and had nothing to do with the campaign, since their alleged nightstand occurred 10 years before the campaign,” von Spakovsky wrote other election campaign financing provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act apply.”
Von Spakovsky noted in his 2018 analysis that the Justice Department was already testing this theory with former Democratic presidential nominee John Edwards, whose campaign donors paid up to $1 million to Edward’s lover, Rielle Hunter, while she worked as a videographer for Edwards and his presidential campaign.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg during a news conference in New York on Thursday, September 8, 2022. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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The Justice Department tried to argue that the payments were campaign-related, although they did not go through Edwards’ campaign accounts because they were intended to protect Edwards’ reputation during his presidential bid. A jury acquitted Edwards of one charge of accepting an illegal campaign donation and did not enter a verdict on the other charges, resulting in a mistrial.
The Justice Department dropped its charges and never tried Edwards again.
“The alleged one-night stand between Daniels and Trump is far more stretchy,” von Spakovsky wrote. “Daniels had no connection to the presidential campaign and the encounter – if it took place – did not take place during the campaign itself. In any event, even if the Daniels payment were to be viewed as a campaign-related expense, unlike Edwards’, the nominal $130,000 payment was not made by Trump campaign donors, but by Trump’s personal attorney (not the attorney of the campaign) with whom he has a long-standing business relationship… Even if one could reasonably interpret the payment to Daniels being somehow connected to the presidential campaign, there would still be no infraction since the candidates are spending so much of their own money may, as they wish, for their own election campaigns.”
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Von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital that his “opinion hasn’t changed” since he wrote the article.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung described the ongoing investigation as a “witch hunt”, called the former president “completely innocent” and accused Bragg of being in the pocket of President Biden and “radical Democrats”.
The Manhattan Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
Source : www.foxnews.com