Looks mighty suspicious to me.
It is suspicious, but it’s a good cover. Of course they were buying votes, but they weren’t stupid enough to send text messages about doing so. Those messages are asking for the names & addresses of everyone that the Reverend had out on the streets passing out money at polling stations. They are the so-called GOTV workers. It’s not illegal to pay them. What’s illegal is having them pay individual voters.
Cochran thinks he’s gonna get away with saying he had no knowledge that his GOTV workers were buying votes. He’s made sure that money is off the books.