Here's a little something I'm curious about — a very little something. No one outside the Trump family circle seems to know how wealthy he is. He used to quote all sorts of numbers and it was obvious from how often they changed that he was just making them up off the top of his oddly-haired head. But it's safe to say the guy ain't sending Melania to shop at Food 4 Less.
It's also pretty obvious — I don't think he even denies it since there's hard evidence — that he had Michael Cohen make that payoff to Stormy Daniels and then Cohen got reimbursed via a series of checks from Trump. Cohen's lawyers turned one over to investigators a week or two ago and they just found another one. Michael Monico, Cohen's lawyer, appeared on an MSNBC show today and displayed it. Here's some of what he said…
"The president of the United States wrote a check — as president — to Michael Cohen. That was part of a scheme to violate campaign finance [laws]," Monico said during a live appearance on The Beat with Ari Melber. "This was a scheme, in part, to defeat the election…and the first check, by the way, which was referenced in Mr. Cohen's testimony, was a $70,000 check, which I have with me today — a copy of it I have with me today. A $70,000 check written on the Donald J. Trump revocable trust.
"When Michael Cohen went to see the president for the first time in the White House in February of 2017…The president said to Michael, at that time, you will be getting the two checks soon. The two checks meaning the two $35,000 checks," Monico said. "And sure enough it was on Valentine's Day 2017."
Monico said Cohen claims the check was signed by Donald Trump Jr. and [Allen] Weisselberg [chief financial officer of the Trump Organization]. He added that Trump told Cohen that the two checks of $35,000 would be forthcoming at the meeting at the White House.
Why was this paid off in installments? This is the way you and I pay off debts when we're strapped for cash. Shouldn't Donald Trump, one of the world's wealthiest men he says, be able to pay back $130,000 in one check? And wouldn't one check that he'd rather not see be made public be preferable to several checks that he'd rather not see be made public?
Was the premise that one $130,000 check might be too easily connected to the $130,000 that was paid to Ms. Stormy, whereas a number of smaller amounts that totaled $130,000 would fool any investigators? This is kind of lame way to hide a transaction that Trump's lawyers insist was not illegal in the first place. Was the idea that it would look like a regular retainer paid to Cohen? I guess it's something like that but it sure didn't work, did it?
And seriously, did Trump not have the dough to take care of this right away and not make his then-loyal, "I'd take a bullet for Trump" attorney not have to wait months for reimbursement? And who was Trump waiting for to pay him so he could write those two checks for $35,000?