{"id":173308,"date":"2023-03-30T22:55:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T22:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=173308"},"modified":"2023-03-30T22:55:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T22:55:04","slug":"fec-drops-trump-hush-money-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/politics\/fec-drops-trump-hush-money-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"FEC drops Trump hush-money investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/KCLSKWtFHPiQtWpcdylDgOCG43I=\/0x0:3000x1688\/1920x1080\/2021\/05\/07\/1620352973030.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Former President Trump. Photo: Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Election Commission announced Thursday that it won&#x27;t proceed with a case examining whether former President Trump violated election law in 2016 a hush-money payment made through his then-lawyer Michael Cohen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The state of play: <\/strong>The election commission, split between three Republicans and three Democratic-aligned commissioners, dropped the proceeding in a closed-door meeting in February, per the New York Times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Flashback: <\/strong>Trump allegedly directed Cohen to pay adult-film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 election to keep quiet about her relationship with the former president. That payment, which &quot;was far in excess of the legal limit for individual contributions for president,&quot; was never reported on Trump&#x27;s campaign filings, the Times writes.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 for violating campaign finance laws. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Trump has not faced<\/strong> consequences for his role in the scandal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What they&#x27;re saying:<\/strong> \u201cThe hush money payment was done at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump,\u201d Cohen said in a statement to The New York Times.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cLike me, Trump should have been found guilty. How the F.E.C. committee could rule any other way is confounding.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Of note: <\/strong>Two Democratic-leaning members of the FEC released a statement criticizing their Republican colleague&#x27;s decision.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&quot;There is ample evidence in the record to support the finding that Trump and the Committee knew of, and nonetheless accepted, the illegal contributions at issue here,&quot; they write.<\/li>\n<li>&quot;To conclude that a payment, made 13 days before Election Day to hush up a suddenly newsworthy 10- year-old story, was not campaign-related, without so much as conducting an investigation, defies reality.&quot;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yes, but: <\/strong>Two Republican-leaning commissioners released their own statement saying the dismissal was a matter of &quot;prosecutorial discretion.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They also note that with Cohen&#x27;s punishment the &quot;public record is complete,&quot; and that pursuing the case further would &quot;not the best use of agency resources.&quot;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2021\/05\/07\/fec-drop-trump-hush-money-case\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President Trump. Photo: Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":173307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23055],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>FEC drops Trump hush-money investigation - Pre Coin News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/politics\/fec-drops-trump-hush-money-investigation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FEC drops Trump hush-money investigation - Pre Coin News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former President Trump. 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