By: C. Neal

And, you can help hold them accountable.

These days if you do an image search online for “hush money” you will get a whole bunch of pictures of porn actress Stormy Daniels and there’s a reason why. What started as a private affair between two adults years ago, has become every everyone’s business because the Federal Elections Commision has a way of making what some want to keep private very public.

Donald Trump’s campaign appears to have taken a page out of the John Edwards playbook by making a “hush money” payment to mistress and pornstar Stormy Daniels just before the conclusion of the 2016 Presidential Campaign. The legal question at hand is simple: Did Trump or his organization know about the payment to Daniels? If so, and there is a reason to believe they may have known, as one of Trump’s personal attorneys has taken responsibility for making the payment.

Of course, the attorney, Michael Cohen claims no one knew he was making the payment. Mr. Cohen is widely known as Trump’s “fixer” attorney and he clearly attempted to fix something for Trump but in doing so he violated FEC law by giving more than the legal maximum if indeed the payment is seen as a contribution to the campaign which is defined in a broad way legally-speaking.

So, what now? The FEC has already received a complaint about this issue from watchdog group Common Cause but to this point, they haven’t take actionable steps to investigate. It’s unclear to us why this is but we know that agencies sometimes respond to public pressure. We at Confluence Daily are supporting Common Cause in their effort to generate public pressure on the FEC to investigate these hush money payments that appear to be illegal backdoor campaign contributions.

To get involved we suggest visiting Common Cause to learn more.