Former President Donald Trump said Friday he was exonerated from his 2016 campaign controversy involving adult film star Stormy Daniels, thanks to Republicans at the Federal Election Commission dropping charges against him on the case.
He also tore apart his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who played a key role in the controversy and ended up going to jail after trying to help Trump disguise it from the public.
Republican commissioners at the Federal Election Commission voted Thursday to quash charges against Trump for allegedly accepting an illegal campaign contribution of $130,000 just before the 2016 election to pay off Daniels and stop her from disclosing an alleged 2006 sexual relationship with Trump.
“The Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C., has totally dropped the phony case against me concerning payments to women relative to the 2016 Presidential Election,” Trump said in a statement Friday.
The six-member watchdog commission split evenly, with three GOP commissioners voting to dismiss the allegations and the Democrats seeking to pursue the case. The deadlock prevents the case from going forward.
FEC WANTS PRECHECKED ‘RECURRING DONATIONS’ BANNED AFTER TRUMP USE
Cohen admitted in his plea that on Trump’s instructions, he made an “unlawful” contribution to the Trump campaign by setting up the payments to Daniels. For this and other charges, he was ultimately sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $1.39 million in restitution.
“It was a case built on lies from Michael Cohen, a corrupt and convicted lawyer, a lawyer in fact who was so corrupt he was sentenced to three years in jail for lying to Congress and many other things having nothing to do with me,” Trump said in his statement.
“I thank the Commission for their decision, ending this chapter of Fake News. Between two sleazebag lawyers, Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen, we were all able to witness law and justice in our Country at its lowest!” Trump added.
The three Republican commissioners, all appointed by Trump last year, Allen Dickerson, James Trainor III, and Sean Cooksey, dismissed the allegations that Trump and his campaign broke campaign finance law.
Democratic Commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub acknowledged in a statement Thursday that the commission “did not have enough votes to pursue well-grounded charges that the former President of the United States knowingly and willfully accepted contributions nearly 5,000% over the legal limit to suppress a negative story mere days before Election Day.”
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The commission’s nonpartisan legal team had earlier recommended to the six FEC commissioners that there was sufficient evidence to believe that Cohen, Trump, and the Trump campaign accepted and failed to report illegal campaign contributions.
