Group Claims That Trump’s Stormy Daniels ‘Hush Money’ May Have Been Campaign Contribution, Wants Investigation

A government watchdog group claims that Donald Trump's alleged 'hush money' payment to porn star Stormy Daniels may have broken the law.

Trump payment to porn star Stormy Daniels allegedly campaign contribution
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White House

The government watchdog group Common Cause is sounding the alarm regarding an alleged $130,000 October 2016 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels, reportedly care of Donald Trump and his desire to keep her quiet about an alleged affair that took place just after the birth of his son, Barron. As Newsweek reported, Common Cause claims in a complaint filed January 22 that the payment to Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford), which was first reported on by The Wall Street Journal in early January, may have been an “in-kind” campaign contribution, and thus a violation of campaign finance laws.

In an attempt to have their concerns about the origin of the $130,000 payment that was reportedly made by Trump attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels, the watchdog group has demanded in its Monday complain that both the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice investigate the matter, as it may have been made both illegally and with the intention of influencing the results of the contentious 2016 election by hiding Trump’s alleged sexual liaison with the porn star.

Per the Common Cause complaint, the group believes that the alleged payment to Daniels could be technically classified as a Trump campaign “expenditure,” and indeed one that could have swayed the results of the election in Donald Trump’s favor.

“The American people expect and deserve transparency when it comes to money spent to influence elections and those requirements are not optional no matter how embarrassing the reason behind the expense. Candidates and their attorneys cannot choose how and when to comply with federal campaign finance laws.”

As Vanity Fair reported, Trump’s lawyer Michael, Michael Cohen (who is a personal attorney for Donald Trump and not affiliated with the U.S. government), had spoken on behalf of the embattled POTUS with regard to the alleged Stormy Daniels “hush money.” According to Cohen, Trump “vehemently denies any such occurrence.” Daniels, who spoke of her alleged affair with Donald Trump in a 2011 issue of InTouch magazine, has also denied that she was paid for her campaign time silence about her sexual past with Trump. According to the porn star, who the Inquisitr previously reported has been banking on her newfound 15 minutes of Trump-related fame, her affair with Donald Trump took place in 2006.

There is, however, something of a paper trail linking the porn star to the President at a critical time during his campaign.

According to corporate documents, Cohen created a shell company for the express purposes of transferring $130,000 to Stormy Daniels. The company is called Essential Consultants LLC and was reportedly created in Delaware only about a month before the 2016 election. Then, an Essential Consultants bank account was used to transfer $130,000 to another account, this one that has been tied to an attorney for Stormy Daniels.

Donald Trump himself has not spoken about the alleged affair, nor the so-called “hush-money” reportedly paid on his behalf to a porn star who claims to have been his mistress just months after the First Lady gave birth to his youngest child.