Robert Khuzami, the acting U.S. attorney in this case says in the government’s sentencing memorandum that Cohen committed a campaign finance violation arranging payments from corporations to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels who claimed they had affairs with Trump —in order to buy their silence. Cohen subsequently invoiced the Trump Organization for the Daniels payment. Khuzami asserts these were illegal corporate contributions to the Trump campaign because they were made with “the intent to influence the 2016 presidential election.” Thus, the rules governing federal campaigns apply to the payments. This theory that anything intended to “influence” an election is a campaign-related expense ignores FECA 52 U.S.C. 30114 (b)(2) which specifically states that campaign-related expenses do not include any expenditures “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.”
These payments were the kind of nuisance settlement that celebrities often make to protect their reputations, especially when faced with claims that will cost far more to defend than making a quick payoff without all of the bad publicity that usually accompanies such cases. Given Trump’s celebrity status, the potential liability to these women existed regardless of his election campaign. Giuliani said the payment to Daniels was made “to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family” and “it would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.
According to the Justice Department handbook on election crimes, “Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses,” the prosecution of all campaign finance crimes must be coordinated with the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division in Washington, D.C. No investigation or indictment can occur without a U.S. attorney first consulting with the Public Integrity Section, according to the handbook. In fact, this rule is set forth in the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual of DOJ (Sec. 9.85.210). There is no record of any contacts between Mueller's office and the FEC.
The role of the Justice Department in prosecuting cases under the FECA is “confined to prosecuting violations of the act’s provisions that are committed ‘knowingly and willfully.’” For a criminal violation to occur, “the application of the law to the facts of a matter must at the very least be clear, and there must be no doubt that the FEC considers that the underlying conduct presents a FECA offense. As the Edwards case shows, the Federal Election Commission does not consider payments made to a mistress to be expenditures covered by the federal campaign law, and there is nothing in the public record to suggest that the commission has changed its mind since then. It is therefore unlikely that the prosecutors in this case followed the Justice Department’s own policy with respect to charging decisions in this area. How can Cohen or anyone else involved in these payments be charged with a “knowing and willful” violation of the law by facilitating these payments when numerous campaign finance lawyers, federal election commissioners, and the Federal Election Commission itself have all publicly opined that such payments do not violate the law in the first place?
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/12...-campaign-finance-laws-and-neither-did-trump/