Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, pointed to at least two crimes that Donald Trump is guilty of, citing the president’s newly released financial disclosure.
According to the Democrat, Trump’s disclosure – which conceded that he did, in fact, reimburse Michael Cohen for paying off Stormy Daniels in 2016 – implicates him in campaign finance crimes and violations related to his failure to report the $130,000 payment.
Rep. Schiff said Trump is in a “no-win situation” because he has spun a “false web” of lies surrounding the payment and now he can’t get out of it.
Video:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Adam Schiff says Trump has spun a “false web” of lies, and now he can’t get out of it. #ctl #p2 #Trump #Schiff pic.twitter.com/VQLZ2nte6X
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 17, 2018
Schiff pointed out Trump’s crimes:
If this is a campaign expenditure, if it’s a loan for Michael Cohen to the tune of $130,000, then it violates the limit because that loan is considered basically a contribution and would be limited to a few thousand dollars, not $130,000. So the failure to report this last year in the financial disclosures, the violation of the limit on campaign contributions, I think this is a pretty serious business because it now looks like there may very well be violations of both campaign laws as well as financial disclosure obligations. So that’s a first take. I would certainly want to delve into legal issues more, but I think the president was in a no-win situation given the sort of false web he had woven over this in that if he reported it, it led to one conclusion about prior falsehoods. If he didn’t report it, it led to a different conclusion about prior falsehoods. But to me, the implication is it was a loan and it exceeded the campaign limits. And second, it should have been reported a year ago. And that’s a problem.
Trump’s lies are catching up
As Rep. Adam Schiff said on Wednesday, Trump’s lies appear to finally be catching up with him, and it could have criminal implications.
Initially, the president wanted to keep the payment to Stormy Daniels quiet, so he lied about having no knowledge of it and didn’t disclose the transaction on his 2017 financial documents.
Once proof of the payment surfaced – and Giuliani let the cat out of the bag on Fox News that the president reimbursed Cohen for it – Trump scrambled to disclose it in his latest disclosure.
Too little, too late.
The president’s disclosure was referred to the Department of Justice, almost immediately after it was made.
With the special counsel investigation already threatening to scoop him up on crimes related to collusion and obstruction, Trump’s financial disclosure on Wednesday opened the door to even more violations of the law for a president already drowning in them.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
