Trump Verdict Draws Questions of Congress' Hush Payments

Defenders of Donald Trump are noting the hypocrisy that members of Congress have paid millions of dollars of taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment claims and faced no penalties, yet the former president was convicted on 34 felony counts regarding a payment he made with his own money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Trump on Thursday became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover a $130,00 payment made by disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels before the 2016 election regarding an alleged affair between Daniels and Trump in 2006.

Trump has vehemently denied having an affair with Daniels and any wrongdoing in the case, and he is appealing the verdict.

In 2017, CNN reported that Congress' Office of Compliance said it paid more than $17 million in sexual harassment and other discrimination cases from 1997 to 2017. Since 2019, according to the agency's annual settlement reports, it has paid nearly $300,000 of taxpayer money in claims.

"Congressmen paid $17 million of TAXPAYER MONEY for undisclosed hush payments to cover up sexual harassment claims," Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., posted Friday on X, with a link to the CNN story. "Meanwhile, candidate Trump allegedly used HIS MONEY for a $130,000 hush payment and he's convicted of 34 felonies for not disclosing."

Others made similar remarks on X while referencing Massie's post or the CNN story:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.: "This entire list needs to be public!!!"
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn.: "How can Trump be convicted of this when Congress has paid over $17 Million in taxpayer funded hush money?"
Will Tanner, founder of the American Tribune: "As they lock Trump up in jail for paying his lawyer a retainer, remember that Congress had a multimillion-dollar slush fund from which is paid out "hush money" to those it sexually assaulted and sexually harassed. And, unlike with Trump's legal behavior, there were ZERO repercussions for Congress for either the sexual assault or using taxpayer dollars to make hush money payments."