Does Trump need to show he's a 'wife guy' to save himself?
Donald Trump faces the uphill task of showing his hush money payments to hide his alleged affairs were made because of concern for his marriage and not his presidential campaign.
That well-documented concern was laid out today at the Huffington Post – and so was some of the salacious history that will make Trump’s case quite a challenge. The report noted that the Trump team’s first strategy will be to have the charges thrown out altogether, but failing that, it faces an unusual hurdle.
“While there are many defenses that Trump will probably make if he fails to get the charges dismissed, only one involves the proposition of true love. When former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards beat similar charges in 2012, he did so by arguing that payments secured from campaign donors to keep his extramarital lover quiet were done primarily to protect his marriage and his family from embarrassment — and were not, therefore, illegal campaign expenditures.”
Selling that argument won’t be easy for Trump.
“There is a lot of evidence against the idea that Donald Trump — who carefully (or perhaps carelessly) crafted an image of himself as a Lothario and a playboy — really cared about the sanctity of his three marriages,” the Post reported. It went on to recount a litany of Trump’s sleaziness over a decades-long period, culminating with the infamous Access Hollywood tape that almost cost him the 2016 election.
The article did offer an unusual angle:
“With all of this evidence suggesting that Trump may not be a particularly loyal or respectful husband, he would have a stronger argument in court now by claiming that what he feared most about the revelation of these alleged affairs was the financial hit he might take in a divorce,” it suggested.
“Trump likely has a prenuptial agreement with his third wife, just as he did with Maples. He felt burned by the divorce proceedings with his first wife and afterward stated that prenuptials are “totally necessary.” His prenuptial with Maples provided her with $1 million upon divorce. If Trump currently has a prenuptial agreement, it may include an infidelity clause. A violation of this clause could trigger greater financial rewards for Melania Trump in a divorce if he cheated on her.”
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