In a rambling Oval Office interview with Reuters, President Donald Trump Tuesday evening admitting to making hush money payments to women he allegedly slept with.
But the president said his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, should have known how to effect the payments legally.
Regardless, the president told Reuters’ Jeff Mason, there was no crime. But if there were, he said, it was only civil. But even then, the president backtracked, there was no legal violation.
“Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution,” Trump told Mason. “If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”
Trump is wrong.
The hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, just before the November 2016 election, and to at least one but possibly several other women, are considered illegal campaign contributions.
If a court were to find Trump made the payments knowingly to improve his chances of winning the election, that’s a felony. So said federal prosecutors in a court related filing in the Michael Cohen case just last week.
In that same Tuesday evening interview Mason says Trump told him, “he is not concerned about getting impeached. ‘It’s hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and who’s created the greatest economy in the history of our country,’ he said.”
The Constitution provides for impeaching presidents who have committed high crimes and misdemeanors. A felony would be covered under “high crimes and misdemeanors.”