WASHINGTON — The Federal Election Commission on Thursday dropped its inquiry to determine whether former president Donald Trump violated campaign finance laws when his personal lawyer paid an adult-film actress $130,000 in the days leading up to the 2016 election.

The case stems from allegations that Trump ordered his personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to make a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from disclosing an affair fewer than two weeks before Election Day.

Cohen has served time in prison for lying to Congress, breaking campaign finance laws and tax evasion, but Trump has not faced any consequences in the incident.

On Thursday, members of the bipartisan commission issued statements explaining their evenly split votes on the case. Without a majority voting to move forward, the case was dropped. One Republican member recused himself from the case, and one Democrat was not present to vote on the issue.

The two remaining Republican commissioners, Sean Cooksey and Trey Trainor, said they voted to dismiss the case because it was “statute-of-limitations imperiled” and pursuing it further would be a poor use of agency resources.

“The Commission regularly dismisses matters where other government agencies have already adequately enforced and vindicated the Commission’s interests,” they said in a statement on Thursday.

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But two Democratic members of the commission disagreed. They cited a December recommendation by the agency’s Office of General Counsel that suggested the commission find that Trump and his campaign “knowingly and willfully” violated multiple election laws.

“There is ample evidence in the record to support the finding that Trump and the Committee knew of, and nonetheless accepted, the illegal contributions at issue here,” Chair Shana Broussard and Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub said in a statement Thursday.

“To conclude that a payment, made 13 days before Election Day to hush up a suddenly newsworthy 10-year-old story, was not campaign-related, without so much as conducting an investigation, defies reality,” they continued. “But putting that aside, Cohen testified under oath that he made the payment for the principal purpose of influencing the election. This more than satisfies the Commission’s ‘reason to believe’ standard to authorize an investigation.”

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has publicly discussed an alleged affair that she had with Trump, but she also issued a statement denying the intimate relationship in 2018.

Cohen has admitted to making the $130,000 payment and was sentenced to three years in federal prison for several financial crimes, including paying women to remain silent about their relationships with Trump during his 2016 campaign.


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