Talk:Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal

Which laws were supposedly broken?

I've read through this article but I can't seem to find the part of the article that explains what Trump allegedly did illegally or what law was broken. Simply that he "didn't disclose" the payment, but nothing as to why that was illegal. Could this be clarified in the body of the article? — Nythar (💬-❄️) 11:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

We'll find out what he's charged with if he is indicted. Michael Cohen pled guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate or campaign – Muboshgu (talk) 15:02, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

He also pled guilty to one count of making false statements to a congressional committee. Unknown0124 (talk) 18:28, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

So I'm not going to edit the article, I'll leave that to the pros, but to your question, put simply here's what happened:

In 2006 (I believe) Trump and Stormy had sex. In 2016 Cohen gave her 130.000 $ to silence her on the issue, then Trump reimbursed him.

And here's the alleged crime:

1. Trump declared the reimbursement of Cohen normal lawyer's fees. Effectively giving him money for services he didn't get. This is basically a money laundering technique.

2. He deducted those payments from tax, not only hiding what they were for, but also claiming tax deduction on it. Of course previously taxed hush money is not deductible.

3. Cohen's payment was allegedly to keep the whole thing from hurting Trump's campaign. Since the payment was made only to help his campaign, it can be considered a campaign donation and must be declared as such and also what it was for - of course that wouldn't work without blowing the whole thing wide open. The fact that it was Cohen's/Trump's personal money doesn't make any difference - if it was used for the campaign it can be considered campaign money.

So basically the alleged crimes are, that Trump falsified business records disguising hush money as lawyer fees, claiming tax deductions for it and by this launder process violated campaign finance laws, because the payment benefitted his campaign. 193.197.148.126 (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 15 April 2024

Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump hush money scandal → Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal – It's not only about hush money. It's about:

1. an alleged sexual affair involving a high-profile person,
2. hush money to catch and kill the story,
3. paying the money out of the Trump Organization when it's a deeply personal expense,
4. cooking the books by characterizing the expense as retaining legal services,
5. violating campaign finance laws,
   

so calling it a "hush money scandal" is over-simplifying. We can't obviously include all of the above in the article name, so maybe just call it a "scandal" without qualification? HandsomeFella (talk) 10:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I have WP:BOLDly renamed the page to "Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal", which was the title of this page until it was moved without discussion yesterday. The status quo title should remain until a consensus forms to move the page. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Is the 2005 Access Hollywood tape and comments relevant to the actual Daniels-Trump affair?

Currently the tape is mentioned in the "timeline" section of the article. However, The tape doesn't make any mention of Daniels and occurred before the encounter and before any known instance of the affair being proposed. I understand the tape is relevant towards Trump's treatment of women and the 2016 Presidential Election, however it doesn't appear to have any actual relevance to this specific scandal. LosPajaros (talk) 01:46, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, good question. I think "absolutely". The tape's release detonated a bomb of panic in both the RNC and the Trump campaign, which were flying around on the same plane. GOP leaders actively started distancing themselves from Trump and some were withdrawing support and we just heard testimony from Hope Hicks that there were active discussions on replacing Trump just 1 month before election day.(e.g., Hope Hicks' testimony in NY criminal prosecution trial.) Polling support for Trump tanked with the tape's release. It kinda sounds like the scene in Titanic when the crowd panics and fights for a place in the very last boat as they have to "cut loose" since they were out of time. Pecker was alerted to the potential sale of Stormy's story the day after the tape release, Cohen the day after that. If we leave out the tape, it would be like trying to explain why on 9/11 people leapt from the Twin Towers without mentioning the airplanes. I've added an RS to the timeline to support this point. Here is another that has not (yet) been added to the timeline.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

I Understand what you're saying but wouldn't that descriptor of RNC and Campaign panic be more relevant towards the 2016 release of the tape rather than the tape itself? Besides that point, right now for both it just says roughly "the taping occurred" and "the tape was leaked", but it doesn't actually go into any further depth as to why it's important and relevant to the Daniels-Trump scandal. Given that when in initially posted this question I didn't understand how it was relevant to the timeline at all and required your explanation I don't think the timeline is making the connection between the two very apparent and it should probably be expanded upon to actually relate the two together if the two are actually related as you're saying. LosPajaros (talk) 02:04, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

refs for this thread

References