
Trump's Campaign Payments Totalling $130K - severine
https://gist.github.com/RyanCavanaugh/a42ee7f8c4edb540c1b303cf7a7d26e2
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dtf
Here's Susan Simpson's latest blog on the matter, with some interesting
thoughts on what might have happened and why:

[https://viewfromll2.com/2018/03/11/on-the-origins-of-
stormy-...](https://viewfromll2.com/2018/03/11/on-the-origins-of-stormy-
danielss-130k-settlement-payment-and-the-probability-of-the-disbursement-
records-matching-the-settlement-amount-by-random-chance/)

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credit_guy
The post shows good investigative work, but there’s one week argument.
Supposedly the hush money had to be paid by the Trump Campaign and not the
Trump Organization because for the latter “ $130K isn’t the kind of rounding
error a company is likely to miss“. But then the Campaign pays the Org the
$130k, and the Org faces the same problem. One way or another the Org needs to
write a check to someone representing Stormy Daniels, and that expense will be
noticed by internal accountants, internal and external Audit, and ultimately
the IRS. the fact that there are 5 received checks that add up to the same
number is quite irrelevant.

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paws
Cool, I hadn't seen this kind of usage of the bitwise operator before.

    
    
      for (let bitMask = 0; bitMask < 1 << scanWindowLength + 1; bitMask++) {

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ianai
Slightly longer TLDR: They perumatated the partial sums of a set of
transactions around a timeframe and found a near combination to 130k

“The payments marked with * add up to $129,999.72, just as Simpson found. Note
that we only needed to span 7 transactions to find this sequence, but were
considering sequences of up to 12.

Again, this is the only way to select from a window of 12 transactions to get
any number within $1 of a $10,000-round number near $130,000.

We tested 8,386,560 possibilities, looking for false positives.

We found one positive result, and it's exactly the result we expect to find if
the "just a coincidence" hypothesis is false: Around the time the Daniels
payment was made, for the amount the Daniels payment was in.”

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jorblumesea
I never understood why Trump thought it was a good idea to become President.
He has such a history of shady deals and corruption, why put all of that into
such public scrutiny? If you are up to no good, the presidency is one of the
worst things you could hope to win.

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ehvatum
All the right people hate Trump. It's as asset to him. He clearly courts and
benefits from the silly moral outrage peddled against him. The same people
outraged by Trump's consensual sex advocate every conceivable form of sexual
deviance, oppose public exposure to the Ten Commandments, embrace and promote
Islam, and they outright despise Middle America, our culture, values, and us
as human beings. The arbiters of tolerance have less than none for Trump or
anything he does, nor do they tolerate his supporters. This creates division,
cleaving off such a large portion of the electorate that Trump became
president simply by painting himself as a regular Joe billionaire who is
oppressed by the left. That's why he thought it would be a good idea to run.
That's why he won. Because of the closed-minded bigotry of supercilious
coastal elites incapable of seeing past their self-congratulatory narcissism.
I.E., exactly the attitude you are expressing. I don't mean that as an insult
- I want you to understand the dynamics at play. This is how Trump's
supporters feel.

~~~
jorblumesea
I wasn't questioning his election. But if you have a history of shady business
deals and long standing connections to less than scrupulous elements of the
business world, why on earth you want to be President? It's the most
scrutinized position in the world. Once you become President everyone watches
your move with a microscope.

For someone like Trump, who has a history of sketchy finances and dubious
business practices, it seems attracting attention and investigation is the
last thing you'd want.

I guess critical thinking is "elitist self-congratulatory narcissism"? /s

I also think it's funny that your post blasted the liberal arrogance in the
most arrogant churlish way possible. Basically disproving your entire point.
Nice to know that California doesn't have the condescending asshole market
completely cornered ;)

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ehvatum
Our discussion is centered around perception and semiotics. How is it that
Trump benefits from what you perceive as a liability? To you, his past
dealings and the controversy surrounding him communicate that he should not be
President of the United States. Yet, these dealings and this controversy are
viewed by his base as bona fides. Applying critical thinking this problem is
difficult when the concept of critical thinking itself has been abducted to
mean "conclusion: Trump is bad". Diversity of thought, empathy, and dignity
are not afforded to Trump supporters by the left. It certainly goes both ways,
as can be seen by the degree to which his supporters support him out of spite
for leftist orthodoxy. The complaint that the left heaps praise on Islam and
non-European culture while denegrating Christianity and European culture is
very real, and there is much to convince Trump supporters of this. Trump goes
far out of his way to cause multiculturalist backers of tolerance and empathy
to treat his supporters with disrespect, judgement, and complete lack of
empathy. Rather than fretting about who is an asshole and who is good and
just, I seek to understand what is happening and why.

~~~
mlevental
These two things are very different:

>why on earth you want to be President?

>he should not be President of the United States

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ggg9990
This is cute but ultimately pointless. Trump has survived _sharing classified
information with Russia._ Fucking a porn star and paying her off isn’t going
to really cause any problems for him. And Jeff Sessions certainly won’t indict
him.

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Fjolsvith
Well, isn't Trump the Commander in chief? That means that he absolutely gets
to decide what classified material can be shared with whomever and it's not
illegal if he does it, regardless of whether it's a dumb move.

He can give away all our secrets and it isn't illegal.

~~~
ggg9990
I’m talking about political survival, not legal.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Then why the remark about Sessions not indicting Trump for it?

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severine
TL;DR FEC Data proves Trump laundered money to pay off Stormy Daniels. The
odds it's a coincidence are 8,000,000 to 1.

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adamrezich
I guess I don't understand; is any of this actually illegal?

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severine
[1] Campaign finance law, from the FEC:

> Using campaign funds for personal use is prohibited.

> Commission regulations provide a test, called the “irrespective test,” to
> differentiate legitimate campaign and officeholder expenses from personal
> expenses. Under the “irrespective test,” personal use is any use of funds in
> a campaign account of a candidate (or former candidate) to fulfill a
> commitment, obligation or expense of any person that would exist
> irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal
> officeholder.

> More simply, if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy
> or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban
> applies.

[1] [https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-
di...](https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-
disbursements/personal-use/)

~~~
adamrezich
This still seems inconclusive to me. I'm no lawyer, but why would Trump want
to pay for this porn star's silence unless he became a Presidential candidate?

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ipsin
...and it's flagged...

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torstenvl
Yeah, this shouldn't be flagged IMO. I don't see how it breaks HN guidelines -
it simply finds evidence (albeit far from conclusive) for something many HN
readers may wish weren't true.

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scottmf
I’ve noticed a lot of posts like this disappear from the front page lately.
Anything potentially critical of Trump seems to drop off suddenly.

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tdb7893
I flag them even though I don't like Trump often because the posts (and
comments) are often poor quality and political news is already ubiquitous
pretty much everywhere else on the Internet so I don't feel bad being a little
stricter on it here.

Interestingly, "most stories about politics" is one of the example of off-
topic in the guidelines so I think there is just a general sentiment against
political news here

~~~
ianai
I don’t think that’s appropriate in a criminal light. It’s ok to say a site is
politics free, but evidence of crime shouldn’t be surpressed. Particularly not
when the evidence is documented with technological steps. At that point it’s
definiely HN worthy.

Further, I didn’t see the HN post about a block chain being used in a voting
process flagged.

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neximo64
Only if Stormy accepted AMEX's card processing fees.

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braderhart
Can't wait to see the trial that never happens and the protests that never go
anywhere.

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IronWolve
Just ignore the facts they had to round up. /s

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econner
They do say within $1.

But yea it's a little weird to attempt to cover your tracks and then only vary
the total by 28 cents.

~~~
mcphage
Clearly it’s enough to fool the people who want to be fooled, ie, the person
you’re responding to.

