Internet slams Trump as ex-aide alleges his campaign paid out women for discrimination or harassment

WASHINGTON, DC: The campaign team of former President Donald Trump is facing allegations of deliberately concealing settlement payments to women, which is considered to be a breach of federal law, per a report by RadarOnline.com.

On Friday, May 10, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsible and Ethics in Washington (CREW) submitted a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, demanding a probe into fresh allegations arising from a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by AJ Delgado, a former senior advisor on the 2016 Trump campaign.

Delgado has claimed that she was unjustly and illegally sidelined after disclosing that she was pregnant.

What are allegations leveled against Donald Trump's campaign by AJ Delgado?

AJ Delgado claimed that during a brief negotiation for a settlement in 2017, Marc Kasowitz, a top attorney of the ex-president, openly admitted that he intended to cover up a potential payout, which goes against the federal disclosure laws that mandate campaigns to publicly reveal the identity of payment recipients.

Kasowitz informed Delgado that "Trump and the Campaign would need to keep this confidential" as Trump "is known for 'not settling'."

When Delgado's lawyers "expressed this would not be possible because disbursements by a Campaign are public record," she said, Kasowitz "dismissed the concerns easily," telling her that disclosure was "not a problem at all" and that "what we would do is the campaign pays me and then I cut a check to you guys."

"In other words, the payment would be routed through a middleman, to hide the fact that the Campaign had settled, from the public and the FEC," Delgado claimed.

"I thus have direct, personal experience with the Defendant-Campaign hiding settlement payments to women, routing them through a ‘middleman law firm', which to the public would only appear as payments 'for legal services'," she explained.

Delgado also claimed to have "information and reason to believe" that Kasowitz unlawfully transferred Trump campaign funds in confidential payouts to many other women "who raised complaints of gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and sexual harassment."

Following the November 2020 election, Kasowitz's law firm was allegedly paid over $4.5 million by the Trump campaign over two months. Apart from that, millions more in unexplained legal reimbursements were given to Red Curve Solutions, the Trump campaign's finance compliance firm.

CREW president Noah Bookbinder said, "The allegations made in AJ Delgado’s declaration paint a deeply troubling picture of potentially illegal activity carried out by Donald Trump’s campaign.”

"The FEC must conduct an investigation to determine the validity of these claims and establish the degree to which any wrongdoing occurred," he added.

Bookbinder further stated that the public has the right to know how political funds are put to use, and that "schemes to hide that information undercut Americans' faith in our political system. Donald Trump’s admission of using pass-through payments to hide their purpose and protect his political prospects makes it even more important that the FEC investigate. No candidate or campaign is above the law, not even Trump."

A Kasowitz Benson Torres spokesperson responded to the allegations by the former Trump campaign aide, saying, "Ms Delgado’s accusations that there were FEC violations or that the firm acted as a ‘middleman’ to ‘hid[e] settlement payments to women’ from the Campaign are pure fantasy and false."

The parallels between AJ Delgado's claims and the 2016 hush money payments that are currently being litigated in the former president's criminal trial in Manhattan were highlighted in the complaint that CREW filed on Friday.

“The use of pass-throughs to hide the true purpose of payments is not unfamiliar to Mr. Trump and his businesses,” the complaint stated. “For example, Mr Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, for payments made to ‘catch and kill’ a story concerning Mr Trump’s alleged extra-marital relations.”

“Regardless of what Mr Trump may have experienced in the business world, federal law does not permit a political committee to report any expense routed through an attorney or any other intermediary as a payment to the intermediary for ‘legal expenses’ or otherwise. Rather, federal law requires political committees provide detailed and truthful information about who they are paying and why they are paying them, even if doing so would reveal facts embarrassing to the campaign such as the settlement of legal claims."

Internet slams Donald Trump following his ex-campaign aide alleging his campaign paying out  women

One X user asked, "Is there anything he actually does that’s legal ???"

Another user claimed, "Unfortunately, the FEC is majority Republican and have yet to take any action to investigate their own."

Another user remarked, "What a vile old man."

One X user wrote, "Something’s Gotta get this criminal."

Another user said, "FEC has over 50 complaints, but the GOP at FEC refused to investigate him."

Finally, this user tweeted, "Trump will lose the election and spend the rest of his life in and out of courtrooms it will never get any better for him."

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