Claim:
Some people have attempted to draw a comparison between the negotiated settlement between former President Bill Clinton and Paula Jones, and the hush money payments made by former President Donald Trump to Stormy Daniels.
Reasoning:
While both events involve former presidents paying money to women, the context surrounding the two events is significantly different. Clinton and Jones mutually reached an out-of-court settlement, whereas Trump privately arranged his payments to keep Daniels from speaking publicly. Trump’s payment was a direct financial incentive to get Daniels to sign a nondisclosure agreement. In contrast, Clinton’s payment was a settlement made in lieu of further legal action over Jones’s allegations of sexual harassment.
It’s also important to note that “hush money” payments are not necessarily illegal. Trump was charged with falsifying business records to hide the payment, not with paying the hush money. A more apt comparison to Trump’s hush money payment to Stormy Daniels would be the case of former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, who, during his 2008 presidential campaign, took around $1 million from wealthy campaign donors and paid his then-mistress Rielle Hunter to hide the affair. He was tried in federal court in 2011 for the payments, but the Department of Justice later dropped most of the charges after a mistrial.
Fact or Fiction?
Fiction. The legal implications surrounding the two events do not support the claim that there are significant similarities between Trump’s hush money payments and Clinton’s settlement with Jones. They are different.
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