What is the difference between Donald Trump’s and Bill Clinton’s Payments

By Dave Pulver

Trump faces an indictment, which has not been made public, related to his alleged involvement in the $130,000 payment made in 2016 to the porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she claims she had with him years earlier.

CLAIM: It is a double standard that former President Donald Trump may be indicted over alleged hush money payments to a woman who accused him of sexual encounters, while former President Bill Clinton faced no criminal charges for paying a sexual harassment accuser $850,000.

As a Manhattan grand jury weighs whether to indict Trump over hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign, social media users are spreading comparisons between Trump’s case and one involving Clinton 25 years ago.

The 1998 Clinton-Jones settlement was a settlement of a civil lawsuit, and the settlement was public and was filed in court.  By comparison, the payment in Trump’s case was through a shell company and reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses in the final weeks of his 2016 presidential campaign.  Another difference is that Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pled guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws in connection to the payment.

Cohen paid Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, through a shell company before being reimbursed by Trump, whose company, the Trump Organization, logged the reimbursements as legal expenses in the final weeks of his 2016 presidential campaign, The Associated Press has reported.

Nan Hunter, a professor of law emerita at Georgetown University’s law school, said Bragg could potentially charge Trump with falsifying a business record because he has claimed that the money paid to Daniels was a legitimate business expense incurred by the Trump corporation.

Read the full article at APNews.com.

Bio: Dave Pulver is a staff writer at MBFC & NFN. A retired communications engineer of 35 years, his interests include technology, history, civics, and politics.