Cohen’s guilty plea may inspire reform

By now it’s clear: Michael Cohen, in his guilty plea to a federal judge Tuesday, said he was directed to break the law by an unnamed candidate who is clearly President Trump.

Amid the whirlwind of accusations related to Russian cyberattacks, election interference and potential conspiracy with candidate Trump, it could very well be that campaign-finance violations become the President’s greatest vulnerability.

That’s not to diminish the gravity of the crime the President’s close confidant and attorney has said he committed. Indeed, in his plea agreement, Cohen admits that he made payments — in coordination with a candidate — to pay off two women to keep information about alleged affairs with the future President from becoming public. He also says he was reimbursed by the candidate in question.

If that’s not brazen enough, the judge asked Cohen if he knew what he was doing was illegal, and Cohen responded that he did. The law’s pretty clear: It is illegal make or accept an in-kind contribution to a federal candidate in excess of $2,700. The $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) far exceeds this limit.

But why would a candidate’s lawyer think twice about violating our campaign-finance laws? As one campaign-finance lawyer commented shortly before the 2016 election, “[W]e are in an environment in which there has been virtually no enforcement of the campaign-finance laws.”

Much of the blame for that falls on the Federal Election Commission, the very agency meant to halt violations of these laws in the first place. If Cohen nearly got away with it, imagine how many other similar violations have been allowed to slide.

Candidates raising money for their own super PACs, dark-money groups spending in elections without disclosing their donors, foreign governments illegally buying political ads on the internet without disclosure, these are just a few of the disturbing trends that started with the election commission’s repeated failures to use its enforcement authority to uphold campaign finance law. Over and over again, the commission has looked the other way while laws meant to prevent corruption of our political system were skirted and then fully ignored by billionaires and candidates alike.

Part of the problem is structural.

The FEC has been stymied by partisan gridlock for years. Its members are meant to reach bipartisan agreement, but in reality, they are often locked in a stalemate and rarely get to a point where they actually take action against candidates and politicians.

And what incentive is there to change? Not only has the Supreme Court wiped out core protections meant to ensure the integrity of our elections, but politicians have little incentive to change the rules of the game. Too many benefit, despite the fact that too many of us lose.

While many will obsess about what Cohen’s guilty plea will mean for the future of the Trump presidency, for us election wonks, it has shined a bright light on the failures of the campaign finance system. The hope must be that it will inspire real change — such as transparency rules, an end to dark money and perhaps even a rethinking of the Federal Election Commission’s structure — that could make our system more fair and more democratic.