Did Donald Trump pay Stormy Daniels to help him win the presidency or was he just keeping a secret from his wife? If it’s the former, he has foisted a fraudulent marital persona before the country to achieve election and also did something illegal (campaign fund usage has to be disclosed). If it’s the latter–if he was hiding an affair from his spouse–then he has committed fraud against his wife, proving they don’t have an open marriage. So it’s one or the other–or even both at the same time. In either case it’s fraud–fraud against Melania, fraud against voters, or fraud against both.
And if in a Los Angeles courtroom Stormy Daniels is granted the right to sue Trump, discovery will open him up to still further disclosures, including his past behavior with women in general–patterns not just of affairs, but of sexual assault and harassment.
So notice these sentences in The New York Times today. They strike me as ominous:
“A lawsuit opens the door, and judges almost always allow for a plaintiff to have a fishing expedition,” said Robert S. Bennett, the Washington lawyer who represented Mr. Clinton in the Paula Jones case. The questions could include, “Have you paid other people money?” he said….It could have simply been a personal matter…of Mr. Trump wishing to keep a secret from his wife.
Prometheus Unbound 