New York Times Quotes Trevor Potter on Illegal Corporate Contributions

The federal campaign finance and tax evasion case that is embroiling the White House began in the unlikeliest of places: the world of supermarket tabloids.

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Mr. Trump had an ally in the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher, American Media Inc., which controls nearly every gossip magazine on checkout counter racks throughout the country. Court documents in connection with Michael Cohen’s guilty plea show that American Media had been involved in deals to suppress women’s stories about Mr. Trump that could have threatened his election prospects.

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Tipping Off the Fixer

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“A media entity can talk with a campaign about coverage as part of its media function,” said Trevor Potter, a founder of the Campaign Legal Center who helped write part of the campaign finance law.

But a media company makes an illegal corporate contribution if it acts outside its “legitimate press function” in coordinating with a campaign to spend money to influence an election. Such activity “is not like the action of a media company deciding what to cover and exercising editorial judgment,” Potter said.

Mr. Potter also leads the Political Law Group at Caplin & Drysdale.

For the full article, please visit The New York Times’ website.

Excerpt taken from the article “Anatomy of a Crime: Sex, Hush Money and a Trump Fixer’s Guilty Plea” by Jim Rutenberg and Rebecca R. Ruiz for The New York Times.