Last week, federal prosecutors investigating Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, filed a memo in Cohen’s case stating that hush money payments he made to silence a potential sex scandal were, in fact, made at the direction of then-candidate Trump.
As a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission, CLC President Trevor Potter has been sharing his expertise on election law in the media since revelations of these payments first came to light, including in an appearance on 60 Minutes.
Trevor has co-authored a Washington Post Op-Ed with fellow prominent attorneys George T. Conway III and Neal Katyal about these latest developments, saying:
"The bad arguments being floated in Trump’s defense are emblematic of a deterioration in respect for the rule of law in this country. The three of us have deep political differences, but we are united in the view that our country comes first and our political parties second. And chief among the values of our country is its commitment to the rule of law. No one, whether a senator or a president, should pretend America is something less." Read the full op-ed.
Trevor has also spoken with both Christiane Amanpour and Chris Cuomo on CNN about Cohen and President Trump.
“We now know that the prosecutors have a great deal of evidence, not only that these payments occurred… but that they were done from two sources, both of which constitute illegal expenditures if they are campaign related,” noted Trevor to Amanpour. “[Cohen] says that he did these things, that they were deliberate attempts to avoid the reporting and contribution limits of the federal election laws, and that he did so at the direction of President Trump.”
Later in the segment, Trevor goes on, “I’m reminded of the great Watergate line, which is ‘what did the president know and when did he know it?’ We now are aware that the president knew a great deal about this much earlier than he said, that he was in the middle of it.”
Most recently, Trevor appeared on CBS Face the Nation.
"What we have is a law that is central to our election system and our democracy that requires full disclosure of campaign spending ... To say that we're just going to ignore violations of the law because it's politically convenient is a real problem for the country."
