On Wednesday night, Rudy Giuliani, newly minted member of Donald Trump's legal team, went on Sean Hannity to defend his client against the claim that the $130,000 hush money payment to Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) ran afoul of campaign finance law.
GIULIANI: Having something to do with paying some Stormy Daniels woman $130,000? Which, I mean, is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. That money was not campaign money. Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know. It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.
HANNITY: They funneled it through a law firm.
GIULIANI: They funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it.
Enter George Conway, Harvard and Yale educated lawyer, husband to Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway and frequent Trump critic on Twitter.
With one succinct tweet, Conway indicated that Giuliani's reading of campaign finance law is flawed:
The FEC section that Conway shared reads:
Not considered the candidate's personal funds
Personal gifts and loans
If any person, including a relative or friend of the candidate, gives or loans the candidate money “for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office,” the funds are not considered personal funds of the candidate even if they are given to the candidate directly. Instead, the gift or loan is considered a contribution from the donor to the campaign, subject to the per-election limit and reportable by the campaign. This is true even if the candidate uses the funds for personal living expenses while campaigning.
The implication being that for the purposes of campaign election law, that money can not be considered "personal funds" since Michael Cohen did pay it with the intention of helping Trump's election (as Giuliani would later say on Fox and Friends, "to make it go away" in the lead up to the 2016 election.) And therefore Trump's repayment of the money can not either.
As many on Twitter noted:
Others jumped on Conway's revelation on Twitter as well.
Meanwhile, Jack Posobiec, a staunch Trump advocate, also called attention to George Conway's Twitter message but with a bit of commentary claiming the information was a Trump insult.
No matter where people fell on the political spectrum, there were plenty of opinions about George's latest legal advice.
Some people brought up Giuliani's interview admissions as well as what impact Conway's FEC guidance had on them.
Including one particularly interesting back and forth between Twitter users "David" and "DWW".
A few people even called on Kellyanne to comment, but she made it clear in a CNN interview, she didn't want people "going there."
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