Why I Don't Want to See Another Piece with "Porn Star" in The Headline

The case is not "about sex." Let's not feed the GOP with the words we use to describe Trump's "hush-money" scheme.

“Donald Trump Prepares to Surrender Following Hush-Money Indictment”

“Trump Indicted. Case in New York is Tied to Porn Star Payment”

“A President and a Porn Star: Trump Charges”

“Court Case on ‘Hush Payments to Porn Star”

“Pornstar Vs. Trump”

“NY Grand Jury votes to charge ex-president in porn-star ‘pay-off’: THE GATHERING STORMY”

“Former President Trump Indicted Over Hush Money Payment to Porn Star”

The headlines come from media sources across the board—from the Wall St. Journal to CNBC to The New York Post. And they all have one thing in common: the suggestion that the crime for which Donald Trump is being indicted is “paying-off” Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual affair she claims to have had with him.

Sex. Porn star. Sex. Porn Star. Sex. Porn Star.

The same incantations. Over and over again—often accompanied by glamour shots of Stormy. And did we make it clear that she’s a porn star?

Hush-money. Hush-money. Hush-money.

The damn Democrats are scheming to put Trump in jail for doing what he could to make sure an affair with a sex-worker wasn’t splashed all over the papers?  Come on! Who would want that kind of publicity? And why is it our business anyway, if he likes prostitutes? Oh, she wasn’t a hooker, you say, she was just a “porn star?” You mean, like a woman who takes her clothes off and gets photographed doing nasty things—and for money? Give me a break!

And didn’t Bill Clinton do that with Paula Jones, too? He paid her to lay off the sexual harassment charges, didn’t he? You weren’t so quick to have the FBI ransack his (and that enabler Hillary’s) house, were you?

And how about John Edwards? That slime even had his affair while his wife was dying of cancer. And after she died, he went on to have a baby with the woman he paid off to stay silent. He got off free and clear, didn’t he?

SEX SEX SEX. PORN-STAR. PORN STAR. SEX.

Makes for a juicy headline, it hardly seems worth noting. And a lazy one, too, allowing simple, constantly repeated mantras to replace precise description. Who’s going to pick up a paper or click on an article whose headline screams “falsifying documents.” or “possible violation of election law”? What the hell is “election law” anyway? Certainly doesn’t sound very serious.

And…The bland, can-cover-everything semantics of “is tied to” and “over” and “in” “hush-money scheme” keeps it all vague enough so no one can say the headlines are inaccurate—not exactly, anyway. They are “just” misleading. But that “just” is a problem when so few people get past the headlines to the details—and when they do, do not have them explained adequately. That would be so boring, wouldn’t it? Mueller got screwed on that, and so did Hillary Clinton. She was always trying to explain. She used so many words to do it. Makes one suspicious, doesn’t it?  All those words.

Fact: If the “pay-off scheme” was really just about hiding some extra-marital sex, Trump wouldn’t have much to worry about.  

It’s not illegal to pay for someone’s silence with “hush money.”

It’s also not illegal for a newspaper or other media source to pay for a story that they have no intention of publishing. It’s called “catch and kill” and it’s another way of “hushing” up someone who has a story to tell. Throughout his career Trump has counted on it and benefitted from it. And never got indicted for it.

This time was different. He and Cohen documented the pay-off as a “legal expense.” And the scheme, which also included a “catch and kill” agreement with the National Inquirer to bury a story about a similar pay-off to Karen McDougall, was perpetrated a few weeks before an election in which Trump was already in trouble, having shaken Michelle Obama (and thousands of other women) “to the core” with “Access Hollywood” tapes bragging of pussy-grabbing and other disgusting abuses. Could he survive another sexually repellant scandal? Cohen and David Pecker (publisher of the Inquirer) and possibly other members of the campaign got their heads together (as Michael Cohen reports and Pecker admitted to) and decided he couldn’t. Hence the “catch-and-kill” and “hush-money scheme,” in which pay-offs intended to silence two women were listed as “legal expenses.” That’s falsifying business records, and a misdemeanor.

How does this segue into a violation of election fraud (a felony), and why is this so much more serious than a “sex scandal”? It’s really pretty simple (although the prosecution, if it brings this charge, will have to argue for it): Since the pay-off to Stormy Daniels (and Karen McDougall) was consciously and deliberately made in order to control potentially destructive (for Trump) events right before the election, it constituted a criminal scheme to interfere with the election. As such it functioned effectively as a campaign contribution—and at $130,000 and $150,000 respectively each “contribution” went way beyond the limits set for those.¹

Why is that serious enough to warrant the status of felony? Free and fair elections are the heartbeat of a functioning democracy, and election law exists to make sure that’s the way they are conducted. They don’t insure against abuses, of course; no laws do. That’s because of some systemic flaws that many people would like to see changed. But it’s also because people break the laws—sometimes unknowingly but sometimes fully conscious of the fact that they are breaking the law to manipulate the results of an election. And that’s tantamount to striking a blow against democratic process itself.  

Neither Donald Trump nor Michael Cohen broke the law simply because they paid Stormy Daniels to keep her mouth shut about having sex with Trump.

A lot of people believe that, however. And headlines like those I quoted above, do nothing to disabuse them of that idea. And so, they hand the Republicans a huge gift: the idea that this indictment is “about” hiding a sexual affair—something that they get all quivery and offended by (they are virtuous guardians of our nation’s morals, don’t you know) when it suits their purposes (as with Ken Starr’s salacious slathering of dirt over Bill Clinton’s time with Monica Lewinsky) but trivialize when it comes to one of their own.

The notion that Trump’s abuses were “only” about hiding sex also facilitates a whole bunch of false equivalences—one of their specialties—that can be made into potent talking points. Joe Rogan: “They’re talking about arresting him [Trump] for paying  a girl to stop talking about them having sex…You pay someone….Didn’t Clinton do that?...John Edwards got in trouble for doing that, but he didn’t go to jail. “ Congressman Andy Biggs: “If you’re Bill Clinton and you give $850,000 to Paula Jones in a civil settlement, nothing happens to you. But if you’re Donald Trump and you give money in a civil settlement, a somehow crazy theory emerges from a radical leftist DA supported by George Soros to say, ‘Well, we’re going to have to go after Donald Trump.”

So let’s clear some of that up:

1.    Bill Clinton’s “deal” with Paula Jones was not a “hush-money” pay-off, but a publicly-known settlement of the sexual harassment suit that Jones had brought against Clinton. There was nothing hidden, no one was “silenced.” Rather, a civil suit was settled, as happens every day multiple times in courts across the country.  Trump, in contrast, paid Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public with information that could harm his chances at getting elected. Nisah White, director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics: “A legal settlement to long-standing litigation, file in court and made part of the litigation, is not the same as hush money paid covertly to silence someone”  in the weeks leading up to a presidential election. The funds used didn’t come from the government, nor did they amount to a campaign contribution. He was halfway through his second term as president when the suit was settled. Nan Hunter, professor of law at Georgetown: “There is nothing shady or illegal about two parties settling a case. There was nothing secret about the payment and there were never any criminal charges in the case.”

2.    John Edwards did pay his lover Reille Hunter to keep her quiet, and he freely admitted it during his trial. In fact, he admitted to much more, confessing that “he was a horrible human being who lacked the moral character to lead a nation.” There was no solid evidence that Edwards knew the pay-off was taken from campaign money (see Elie Mystal’s 2018 piece "Stop Comparing Donald Trump's Campaign Finance Fraud with John Edward's Case” for details about this.) And no corroborating witness admitting to their part in a campaign violation. “Do you remember that time Edward’s personal attorney pleaded in open court to violating campaign finance law and lying to Congress at the behest of the candidate?” asks Elie Mystal, “No, you don’t remember that, because that DIDN”T HAPPEN to John Edwards.” In contrast, Trump’s own lawyer, Michael Cohen, pled guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws and indicated, under oath, that Trump (“Individual 1”) was aware and involved, indeed that Cohen did what he did “at Trump’s bidding.” Even without Cohen’s testimony (or Pecker’s admission of the “catch-and-kill”) it strains credulity to imagine that Trump was not aware of the scheme. “Nothing gets done that Mr. Trump doesn’t know about” is a constant refrain from ex-emplyees. And the documents and taped conversations support this.

3.    But what about Monica Lewinsky? Didn’t Clinton lie about that? I trust I don’t need to get into the details of the differences in those cases, as there’s virtually no point of comparison except lying about sex.

So long as the headlines scream SEX, SEX, SEX and keep Stormy Daniels at the forefront of the visuals, the Republicans can make hay tying the three men together by virtue of shared sexual improprieties. From there—as neither Clinton nor Edwards was jailed—it’s just a small step for MAGAkind to claim political motivation, witch-hunt, etc. on the part of Bragg et al. That may not affect—hopefully, will not affect—the legal proceedings. But it’s helping to keep Trump a viable candidate for President (so far), and whipping up his most rabid followers. Who knows what they will do if Trump does indeed get “equal justice under the law”?

From now on, I’ll be doing a Wednesday feature on tv/movies, and a Sunday feature on politics/media coverage. This Wednesday: continuing with “Succession” and “Perry Mason” and some appetizer-size bites about other shows I’ve been watching. Hope you’ll join me!!

1. This piece was written on Sunday, before Tuesday’s arraignment, and so of course could not predict everything that ultimately appeared in the indictment or statement of fact. Most relevant: Bragg indicated there were several others laws—election and tax laws, not just the contribution of limits I meantion—that “bump” the falsifying of records up to a felony. I’ll discuss that in forthcoming posts.