Mark Penn, a former pollster for both Clintons, has come out admitting what Cohen confessed. All at the urging of his lawyer. Clinton pal, Lanny Davis, isn’t even a campaign finance violation. But Hillary’s cover-up is.
She’s paid foreign agents to dig up information on Trump, breaking FEC regulations. Also federal law. Penn points out paying someone to keep quiet is a personal expense and not a campaign expense. Also, that President Trump reimbursed Cohen. Therefore campaign finance laws never come into play. With Clinton however, the opposition research was only for the campaign. Therefore money laundering to cover up these payments were made to a foreign agent. Which is a direct violation of federal election laws.
Penn writes:
The usual procedures here would be for the FEC to investigate complaints and sort through these murky laws to determine if these kinds of payments are personal in nature or more properly classified as campaign expenditures. And, on the Daniels payment that was made and reimbursed by Trump, it is again a question of whether that was made for personal reasons (especially since they have been trying since 2011 to obtain agreement). Just because it would be helpful to the campaign does not convert it to a campaign expenditure. Think of a candidate with bad teeth who had dental work done to look better for the campaign; his campaign still could not pay for it because it’s a personal expenditure.
Contrast what is going on here with the treatment of the millions of dollars paid to a Democratic law firm which, in turn, paid out money to political research firm Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele without listing them on any campaign expenditure form — despite crystal-clear laws and regulations that the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds must be listed. This rule was even tightened recently. There is no question that hiring spies to do opposition research in Russia is a campaign expenditure, and yet, no prosecutorial raids have been sprung on the law firm, Fusion GPS or Steele. Reason: It does not “get” Trump.
Penn is a recovering Clintonholic.