Source:
https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2177326/trump-hush-money-women-was-simple-private
World/ United States & Canada

Trump: hush money to women was ‘simple private transaction’, not illegal campaign spending

  • US president says if anyone broke the law by paying women to stop them telling their stories about him, it was his former lawyer Michael Cohen
US President Donald Trump answers questions from the press before leaving the White House on December 8, 2018. Photo: EPA

US President Donald Trump insisted on Monday that payments to buy the silence of two women about alleged affairs were not illegal campaign contributions, as federal prosecutors contend, but instead a “simple private transaction”.

Trump sought to counter assertions in a court filing on Friday that he had directed his lawyer at the time Michael Cohen to try to silence the women in a bid to influence the 2016 presidential election.