On the list of things that are important, anything having to do with Stormy Daniels is pretty low on the list, but that doesn’t mean her case can’t be pretty consequential. After all, former Trump bagman Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in part for his role in paying Daniels for her silence about an affair she had with Donald Trump. And, you might remember, President Trump was “individual-1” in that case. The only reason that Trump wasn’t convicted for the same crimes as Cohen is that there is a rule at the Department of Justice that precludes its prosecutors from charging a sitting president.
Nothing says Trump can’t, or shouldn’t, do jail time once he leaves office, so anything that bolsters his involvement in the Daniels case can weaken his future defense. And that’s what happened on Monday in a California Superior Court, where a judge ruled that Trump will have to pay for Daniels legal fees in a case related to her effort to escape a non-disclosure agreement.
Trump’s lawyers tried to argue that he wasn’t a party to the agreement, but the judge was having none of that for two reasons. First, he reimbursed Michael Cohen the $130,000 the non-disclosure cost, and second, the Trump legal team had previously attempted to force arbitration in a defamation suit that Daniels filed against him, per the terms of the non-disclosure agreement. Since he had both paid Daniels for her silence and argued in court that its terms should be enforced, the judge saw no reason to rule that Trump was not bound by the agreement himself.
This creates a predicate in court to argue that Trump was most definitely a witting participant in the conspiracy that landed Cohen in jail. I think that was already close to a slam-dunk case, but every little bit of legal scaffolding that is erected will help nail down a conviction, assuming anyone seeks one.
In the short term, the ruling will only cost Trump about $45,000. But it has the potential to do him more damage in the future. Paying off porn stars is hardly one of Trump’s biggest crimes, but there’s no reason he should escape the same justice Michael Cohen faced.
This brings to mind—not for the first time in recent years—a paragraph from Jimmy Breslin’s terrific Watergate book, “How the Good Guys Finally Won”:
“For now, in December of 1973, the ultimate weapon of the bureaucracy, paper, was being used to end the career of Richard Nixon. Paper does not lose interest, nor does it get tired. Paper never goes away. With men, climates change, perceptions alter. What is on paper remains constant. The paper is in files, its carbon copies in other files. A subpoena. Thick, folded legal-bond paper. The prosecutor’s office has a copy, the court clerk has two copies filed, the lawyer of the person receiving the subpoena has a copy. Destroy one copy and three remain. Destroy two copies and still two copies remain. Postpone the hearing, protest it on legal technicalities, tie it up in the courts. Become sick and apply for further postponements. Take months, take years, it does not matter at all. The paper does not go away. It is there and everything is on it and there always is somebody ready to pull the paper out of the file and cause it to be acted upon.”
I love that quote, and it’s the first time I’ve seen it. Thanks for that!
In this instance, what’s fascinating is how Trump’s lawyers lost this case because of an argument they made in another case. This kind of thing can happen when your client has a lot of legal liabilities and you’re trying to keep the fire at a low burn by hitting every little lick of flame. Trump is also trying to stay politically viable, rather than simply win in court, so making small concessions to win a wider war is more difficult to do.
Wouldn’t be the first criminal who got nailed because they thought with their genitals instead their brain.
And, the whole affair illustrates the old maxim about picking battles wisely.
My own fear is a Biden administration will let Trump off the hook. Given what damage Trump and Moscow Mitch have done, they MUST receive extraordinary punishment. Otherwise like the neocon zombies from the Bush Jr. administration, they will keep popping up.