The New York Times reports that Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, told the FEC that he paid the hush money to Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket, without the knowledge of the campaign or his client. As he told the Times yesterday:
Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.#…#The payment to Ms. Clifford [a.k.a. Stormy Daniels] was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.
If this is true, Cohen is the best lawyer ever. Lots of lawyers tell their clients, “It’s not about the money” as they rack up thousands of billable hours. But Michael Cohen puts his money where his mouth is (or in this case, where his client’s mouth was).
I liked legal-beagle Popehat’s response on Twitter:
The Trump people generate legal conundrums like hypothetical questions on a law school exam written by a professor with increasingly grave emotional problems
— FruitOfThePoisonedHat (@Popehat) February 14, 2018
“can you . . . Can you … can you use your OWN MONEY to pay off a porn star not to talk about your client who is…is…RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT? Oh. Oh. I hurt and the liquor isn’t making it stop any more.”
— FruitOfThePoisonedHat (@Popehat) February 14, 2018
One has to wonder how any lawyer could stay in business operating this way.
“Michael! We’re losing money on every client!” his business manager laments.
“It’s okay, we’ll make it up in volume!”