The head of a government watchdog group said the Justice Department has plenty of reason to investigate whether President Trump knowingly omitted information on his federal financial disclosures, following the revelation late Wednesday that he reimbursed his personal lawyer for a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep silent about her alleged affair with his client.
In a series of tweets, Norman Eisen, a one-time Obama White House ethics lawyer and chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Trump may have committed a crime.
“This is more than enough for DOJ to investigate whether Trump intentionally omitted from his federal financial disclosures the $130,000 owed to Cohen & so violated 18 USC 1001, a crime,” Eisen tweeted early Thursday morning.
This is more than enough for DOJ to investigate whether Trump intentionally omitted from his federal financial disclosures the $130,000 owed to Cohen & so violated 18 USC 1001, a crime. Our @CREWcrew complaint: https://t.co/P3dO5PxDcm https://t.co/FtS8QLkms9
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) May 3, 2018
Eisen shared a link to a letter CREW sent to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics David Apol in March advocating for them to launch an investigation into whether the payment or the LLC that Cohen created to funnel the money to Daniels “constituted a loan to President Trump that he should have reported as a liability on his public financial disclosure (“OGE 278”) report, and if President Trump knowingly and willfully failed to report it.”
Trump has often been critical of his Justice Department, most recently saying he might “get involved” in facilitating the agency’s delivery of documents to Congress.
Eisen’s tweets were prompted by a bombshell Fox News interview with Rudy Giuliani, who revealed Trump repaid his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 given to Daniels in October 2016 as part of an agreement for her silence about her alleged affair with Trump more than a decade ago.
Giuliani, who joined Trump’s personal legal team last month, made the case that the money was not campaign money and therefore there was no campaign finance violation. In follow-up interviews, he said Trump gave him permission to speak about the reimbursement and asserted there was “documentary proof” to back up his claim that no campaign finance laws were violated.
Trump has said he knew nothing about the $130,000 payment, and Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal that that his comments on Fox News did not contradict Trump’s. He insisted Trump was “probably not aware” of the payments at the time.
Daniels’ legal team has accused Cohen of violating campaign finance laws, arguing the payment goes beyond the lawful limitations deeming individuals to give no more than $2,700 to a federal candidate.
Michael Avenatti, Daniel’s lawyer, said on CNN late Wednesday that Giuliani’s admission “opens the Pandora’s Box” and reiterated his belief that Trump will not serve out his full term in office.
