(PatriotWise.com) — Donald Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said he hopes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will now drop the case against the former President. He echoed the sentiments of Trump who said earlier that there was no case to answer, and several legal experts have agreed. The case surrounds a payment made by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 and whether this payment was a campaign violation. The money was given to the actress allegedly to silence her claims that she had had an affair with the then-Presidential candidate. Trump has denied that any such affair took place.
Tacopina outlined the details of the case and the most pertinent legal aspects. He said the funds were paid out of Trump’s personal accounts, rather than campaign accounts, and that the allegations of an affair didn’t need to be true, just embarrassing for Mr. Trump. “The key test here is was that payment made or expenditure made irrespective of the campaign? And the answer to that question is certainly yes,” he said. The main allegation then, he added, is that Trump made the payment as a legal expense in order to cover up its true nature.
The matter was complicated further when a letter from the lawyer representing Michael Cohen in 2018 resurfaced. In this letter, Stephen Ryan told the Federal Election Commission that Trump was not involved in the payment and that Cohen had acted independently.
On his Truth Social account, the former President called the letter “totally exculpatory” and said it should bring an end to the Manhattan District Attorney’s “witch hunt.”
The letter dated February 8th, 2018, states that Cohen used his own funds to pay the actress and that neither Trump nor the Trump Organization was party to the transaction and neither party reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment. It added that the Commission had no jurisdiction over the matter because the expense did not constitute a campaign contribution.
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