The FEC so far does not sanction former President Donald Trump for this illegal campaign finance scheme, but the plaintiffs have until August to insist on the Trump trial
Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
The Federal Election Commission fined the US media National Enquairer
for silencing the story of a former Playboy model about a relationship with the former president Donald Trump, at a time when he was a candidate for the presidency of the United States.
The fine was in the amount of $ 187, 500 dollars to group A 360 Half, for having paid the model Karen McDougal $ 150, 000 in August 2016 for the rights to her romance story with then-US presidential candidate Donald Trump.
This event was called “hush-money” , according to documents published by the litigation company “Common Cause”, who filed the lawsuit. The strategy was as follows: they buy the rights to the life story of the former Playboy bunny and then they don’t publish it.
So, according to Common Cause 360 Media, LLC, made an illegal corporate contribution by paying $ 150, 000 dollars during Trump’s first presidential campaign. To this type of strategies at election time implies a “corporate contribution prohibited by law.”
TO360 Media, formerly American Media, was to be prosecuted by federal prosecutors in the city of Manhattan in 2016, but reached an agreement of “No prosecution” for his cooperation in the campaign finance investigation.
“The main purpose in entering the agreement” to pay McDougal “was to suppress the story to prevent it from influencing the elections. ” Declared
That payment was orchestrated by former Trump attorney, Michael Cohen and said investigation took him to prison: Cohen who pleaded guilty in 2018, made two payments to two different women to silence scandals with Donald Trump.
It was also known that the newspaper American Enquairer hid for years any news related to Trump and other celebrities . His tactic, the same: buy the rights to stories and then not publish them.
In 2020 it was known that David Pecker , executive director of the publisher of the media company resigned in 2020, and although he was not pointed out as responsible From such action, it is known that he is a personal friend of the former US president. So far the former president has denied this story.
Both National Enquairer and TO360 Media are owned by Chatham Asset Management. And so far it is not known if the amount of the fine has been canceled.
For her part, the aforementioned model assures that she had an affair with Donald Trump between 2006 Y 2007 and that also A 187 bought the story and then “bury it ”
Although the lawsuit was filed against Trump and his campaign committee, the FEC said that “there was an insufficient number of votes to find reasons to believe that the remaining defendants violated the electoral laws ”. When this result was known, the former president Trump false against me. ”
Anyway, in this story only the media company was sanctioned. In this regard, Paul S. Ryan, Vice President of Policy and Litigation Common Cause, the plaintiff, said that until August, Trump can be prosecuted as responsible for this illegal campaign finance scheme.
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