[guest post by JVW]

I often stated, “One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.” This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

Cross-posted on The Jury Talks Back.

– JVW

With the official cooperation of AMI (the owner of the National Enquirer) with federal prosecutors, the potential campaign finance violations case against Donald Trump is looking stronger and stronger all the time. Stronger, in fact, than the John Edwards case.

There are many details that go into that conclusion, but let’s review two. Yesterday an agreement was made public between the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and AMI. The agreement contains this passage:

In or about August 2015, David Pecker, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AMI, met with Michael Cohen, an attorney for a presidential candidate, and at least one other member of the campaign. At the meeting, Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate’s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Pecker agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such negative stories.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because the Wall Street Journal reported it on November 9 (credit to Justin Miller for catching this):

As a presidential candidate in August 2015, Donald Trump huddled with a longtime friend, media executive David Pecker, in his cluttered 26th floor Trump Tower office and made a request.

What can you do to help my campaign? he asked, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., offered to use his National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women if they tried to publicize alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.

Now, most of the details of that WSJ story have been corroborated by federal prosecutors in their agreement with AMI. The one key detail federal prosecutors did not yet say explicitly is who the “other member of the campaign” was. If the WSJ is correct, that member was Donald Trump.

Following the age-old wisdom of keeping your mouth shut when under the scrutiny of law enforcement, Trump took to Twitter this morning. He blames the lawyer:

I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called “advice of counsel,” and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

….stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

….guilty even on a civil basis. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

The charges were indeed crimes, Trump’s whinging notwithstanding. And the above evidence (as well as the timing, as I have discussed before) shows it was done for the benefit of his campaign, rather to protect his marriage — which was John Edwards’s argument.

Now, Trump has a potential defense: I didn’t know it was illegal to secretly pay money to cover up a story about a mistress for the benefit of my campaign. His ignorance and stupidity would be a bonus here. What’s the problem with that defense? And that brings me to the second piece of evidence I want to mention. You know how they say “there’s a Trump tweet for everything”? Yeah.

He @johnedwards is bad, but @andrewyoung is worse–not only is he a "rat" but it turns out he stole much of the money for himself.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2012

Trump tweeted about the John Edwards case.

He knew making this payment was for the benefit of his campaign, and he knew it was illegal. He directed his lawyer to make the payment, and now his lawyer is going to prison for it.

Increasingly, it looks like Donald Trump belongs in prison as well.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]