Did Trump Just Admit to His Hush-Money Trial Crimes?
Donald Trump’s “bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all” philosophy may have just given his attorneys another headache.The former president is on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records in order to conceal an affair with and subsequent hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, part of an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election. And on Tuesday, Trump seemed to outright admit he had done so, insisting to reporters crowded outside the courthouse that he marked the expenditures to Daniels via his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen as a “legal expense.”“This was a trial that should have never been brought,” Trump said. “I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense. Some accountant, I didn’t know, marked it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was … and you get indicted over that? I should be, right now, in Pennsylvania and Florida and many other states—North Carolina, Georgia—campaigning. This is all coming from the Biden White House because the guy can’t put two sentences together.”“So check it out. It’s called legal expense, that’s what you’re supposed to call it. No one has ever seen anything like it,” he added.Trump: I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense. Some accountant, I didn’t know, marked it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was… So check it out. It’s called legal expense pic.twitter.com/6Mx220Da3K— Acyn (@Acyn) April 16, 2024Unfortunately for Trump, payments to porn actresses made in exchange for their silence don’t usually qualify as legal expenses—especially when those payments amount to key details that could influence a voting populace’s choices ahead of a presidential election.Trump faces 34 felony charges in the case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
Donald Trump’s “bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all” philosophy may have just given his attorneys another headache.
The former president is on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records in order to conceal an affair with and subsequent hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, part of an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election.
And on Tuesday, Trump seemed to outright admit he had done so, insisting to reporters crowded outside the courthouse that he marked the expenditures to Daniels via his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen as a “legal expense.”
“This was a trial that should have never been brought,” Trump said. “I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense. Some accountant, I didn’t know, marked it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was … and you get indicted over that? I should be, right now, in Pennsylvania and Florida and many other states—North Carolina, Georgia—campaigning. This is all coming from the Biden White House because the guy can’t put two sentences together.”
“So check it out. It’s called legal expense, that’s what you’re supposed to call it. No one has ever seen anything like it,” he added.
Trump: I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense. Some accountant, I didn’t know, marked it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was… So check it out. It’s called legal expense pic.twitter.com/6Mx220Da3K— Acyn (@Acyn) April 16, 2024
Unfortunately for Trump, payments to porn actresses made in exchange for their silence don’t usually qualify as legal expenses—especially when those payments amount to key details that could influence a voting populace’s choices ahead of a presidential election.
Trump faces 34 felony charges in the case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.