“remarkably different than the John Edwards case where third parties made payments to Edward’s mistress to keep her quiet during the campaign.”
It actually doesn’t matter. What matters if there is a non-campaign reason for the payment.
Protecting the Trump commercial brand is the reason.
What if the Stormy affair never happened? I’m not convinced it did. There are no papers that Trump signed. Only what Cohen, the lifelong Democrat, produced. And then there is my post right above this. Cohen may have been an insurance policy and since there is no collusion and people like Hannity are hot on the trail, they may have cashed it in.