Extortionist Michael Avenatti blackmailed Candidate Trump, who paid the ransom. The Manhattan DA charged Trump for allegedly misnaming the expense in his company books (a rarely-prosecuted misdemeanor) as a tactic to hide an expense that the DA said should have been paid by Trump's campaign. The DA upped it into 34 felonies largely for every invoice, check, and bookkeeping entry that were allegedly done with the intent to repeatedly hide federal campaign expenses.
Candidates always have expenditures that are triggered by the campaign, such as a suit, hairdo, and teeth whitening, yet it is illegal to pay them from campaign money because it has a "personal use" aspect, unlike direct campaign expenses like mailers, staff, TV ads or legal fees for ballot fights. In fact, a complaint was filed against the RNC for spending $150K on clothing for Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign, which - while triggered by the campaign like the Trump Blackmail - was for personal use. The FEC ruled 5-0 that the RNC can spend on such items; a candidate committee indeed cannot. It's a basic campaign rule that every federal officeholder knows.
Now that it is established that from a campaign finance perspective Trump paid the ransom the legal way, the DA only has alleged misdemeanors of the Trump Org naming the blackmail as, say, legal fees and not marketing done to protect the CEO's name which helps the brand; payments that Trump indeed made in the past. Misnaming expenses are rarely prosecuted because they have no impact on the company's tax liability, and in Trump's situation has long-passed the statute of limitation.
I don't know if Trump's attorneys and spokespeople will present the case in the mere few hundred words as I did or if expert witnesses, the judge, and jury will put politics above the basic facts. But this is the open-and-shut perspective of the case.
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#Facts. 🎯 Thanks Yossi! I'm really missing the Yiddish emails!