Photo By Gage Skidmore/CC BY -SA 2.0
For many years, I lived in New York City not far from Trump Tower, the Plaza Hotel once owned by Donald Trump, and Wollman Rink that now has his name splashed all over the Central Park institution. It was near impossible to miss all of the sensational stories about Trump’s personal life and questionable business practices over the decades. Somehow, staring in 2015, the bold and brassy Donald thought he could pull a fast one and run for president, sweeping all of his dirty linen, pun intended, under the bed. It was just another business thing to be dealt with
In the 2016 election, Trump lost his home city and home state, New York City and New York State, because we knew the guy. The rest of the country has been learning all about him ever since. The tawdry and illegal associated with our president is now being validated by state and Federal legal authorities. The coverup orchestrated by Trump has formally begun to be exposed.
On April 10, 2018, I published a Political & Otherwise post entitled: Will Women Be The Ones To Bring Down Trump? Eight months later, the answer to that question has taken a giant leap forward to becoming a “yes”. Porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate model Karen McDougal have become household names since April, and the man publicly lying about them to cover for his boss is on his way to three years in jail.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer has pled guilty for what he described as hiding Donald Trump’s dirty deeds. He admitted that hush money had been paid to both women, saying it was done at the direction of his boss. The payment to Daniels of $130,000 and $150,000 to McDougal shortly before the 2016 election is being referred to as a violation of Federal election law.
Last Spring audio tapes were found during the raid of Cohen’s office. We heard Michael Cohen’s discussion on tape with Donald Trump about putting together a shell corporation to pay for “all the stuff” that could be damaging to the candidate. It was factual evidence of payments to women that the president has continued to deny. We can only wonder how many other payoffs were made and to whom.
There’s been a third man directly involved in Trump’s efforts to hide his scandals during the campaign. David Pecker has been a Trump buddy as well as publisher of the National Enquirer. who always did everything he could to help his friend. That friendship is probably history now that we’ve learned Pecker has provided key testimony to Federal prosecutors investigating Michael Cohen, and in his own way turned on Trump.
David Pecker and the Enquirer’s parent company American Media, Inc. (AMI) negotiated an immunity deal based upon continued cooperation and a critical admission. In an agreement dated September 21, 2018 but only publicly released on December 12, AMI admits that it worked with Trump’s campaign to kill, or not publish, stories about the presidential candidate’s relationships with women that would have been damaging to candidate Trump beginning in 2015. American Media, Inc. admitted that it made the $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal shortly before the election:
The infamous tabloid company now has a story worthy of its own front page.
The hush money paid to Daniels and McDougal by Trump’s lawyer and AMI were made shortly before one of the closet presidential elections in history. We know they were made to hide Donald Trump’s sleazy behavior from the public, especially key women voters.
A yearlong affair with a Playboy Playmate. A brief relationship with a porn star. Both shortly after Melania Trump had given birth to their child. The man is a sleaze. That’s what we’d say privately, but now we get to say it publicly. We also get to say he’s a crook hiding behind his current presidential shield. This is who the 2016 election elected.
There is nothing inspiring about any of this. Trump’s presidency should never have happened. It was based on lies. Facts that were never made public. And the enormous amount of egotistical naivete that Donald Trump possessed thinking he could run for President of the United States with all of his skeletons locked away. In Trump’s mind, they would never be discovered.