Reveal the Congressional Hush Fund Hypocrites

Which is worse: candidate, businessman, and then still private citizen Donald Trump using his own money to make what Hillary Clinton might call "bimbo eruptions" go away to protect his brand and himself from personal embarrassment, or Congress using taxpayer money in a slush fund to pay off those sexually harassed by sitting officeholders?

As Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, notes in USA Today:

We also know that none of the beneficiaries of this slush fund has been threatened with indictment and incarceration for campaign finance violations since suppressing such information, as Rep. Nadler puts it, amounts to committing a fraud on the American people using their own money.

How many of Trump's accusers are guilty of the very infraction they accuse him of? How many defended the practice and fought to keep it secret and escape accountability with the voters? In Trump's case, Professor Alan Dershowitz points out, if he was using his own money to contribute to his own campaign, there is no crime:

Speaking of getting the President's tax returns, I want to see the list of these harassing scumbags and their tax returns because I'll bet they didn't declare as income the cost of their employer, meaning us, paying settlements on their behalf.

From http://www.woodllp.com/Publications/Articles/ma/110404.htm

The following article is reprinted from The M&A Tax Report, Vol. 13, No. 4, November 2004, Panel Publishers, New York, NY.
TAX IMPLICATIONS OF COMPANIES PAYING EMPLOYEES' LEGAL FEES
By Robert W. Wood and Dominic L. Daher
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Dodging Income: Paying Legal Fees of Another
In O'Malley v. Commissioner, the Tax Court found a pension fund trustee to be in receipt of gross income where his employer paid his legal fees in a criminal prosecution for conspiracy to commit bribery. Even so, the Tax Court permitted O'Malley to deduct these legal fees as ordinary and necessary employee business expenses. At trial, O'Malley argued that the legal fees were ordinary and necessary business expenses of his employer, and, accordingly, they should not be included in his gross income. However, in large part because the pension fund (his employer) was not named as a defendant in the prosecution, the Tax Court determined that the expenses were not ordinary and necessary business expenses of the organization. Instead, the Tax Court found that the legal fees were personal to O'Malley.
Since O'Malley's employer paid his legal fees, guess what? Citing Old Colony Trust, the Tax Court determined that the payment of O'Malley's personal legal fees by the pension fund was income to him.

I know Congress usually exempts themselves from things that pertain to us like their ability to deduct commuting costs that we cannot do, but I'm willing to bet they didn't consider shielding themselves from extra income as a result of harassment suit payouts considering their usual view of themselves as invulnerable to the consequences of their actions. Someone at the IRS really should be checking into this.

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