On Saturday night’s “YourVoice America” program, host Bill Mitchell declared that the payments made during 2016 presidential campaign to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to conceal the adulterous affairs they reportedly had with Donald Trump were not illegal and that, in fact, Daniels and McDougal should have been prosecuted for trying to “blackmail” Trump.
Last year, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to having made payments to Daniels and McDougal on behalf of Trump in violation of campaign finance laws. But Mitchell insists that these payments were not illegal because they were not actually done as part of Trump’s presidential campaign but were rather routine payments that Trump made all the time to deal with those who were attempting to “blackmail” him.
“This thing is an entire fake crime,” Mitchell said. “It’s not a real crime … Donald Trump, as a wealthy celebrity, has had to deal with these sort of blackmail situations for decades. He’s been doing this for decades and for something to be a campaign finance expenditure, it has to be something that you’re doing in the campaign that you would not have done in your private life otherwise. Celebrities have to pay off these things all the time and paying off one of these blackmailers in what is called a non-disclosure agreement—the Democrats love to call it ‘hush money,’ it’s not, it’s a legal non-disclosure agreement—if you pay one of those off, you are not saying that what they’re saying is true, you’re just trying to shut them up because it’s bad for you, it’s bad for your image if they’re out there talking, and your image is worth far more than some small $120,000 pay off, so they do it.”
“It is blackmail,” he added. “I do not understand why she was not prosecuted for blackmail; the two women that did this, I don’t know why that’s not blackmail … Why have these women not been prosecuted for blackmail, because, to me, it’s obvious that’s what it is.”
