Trump: Payments were a ‘simple private transaction’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump asserted 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.”

In morning tweets, Trump sought to counter assertions in a court filing Friday that he had directed his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to try to silence the women in a bid to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to the alleged crime, saying he acted at Trump’s direction.

In his tweets, Trump suggested that the payments were being scrutinized only because prosecutors have not been able to find evidence of collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia. He also appeared to suggest that prosecutors are taking their cues from Democrats.

“So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution, which it was not,” Trump wrote.

He further asserted that even if the payments could be considered campaign contributions, he should be facing a civil case rather than a criminal case. And he said, Cohen should be held responsible, not him.

“Lawyer’s liability if he made a mistake, not me,” Trump wrote. “Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. WITCH HUNT!”

In the tweets, Trump also twice misspelled “smoking gun” as “smocking gun” as he quoted a commentator on Fox News talking about the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Mueller.