Yeah the sequence of events is Cohen paid Daniels, and then Trump paid Cohen legal fees. The sequence is not the big deal.
The ‘big deal’ is that Trump got to write it all off as legal fees in that year. Technically, the payment for exclusive story rights would not be tax-deductible (or at least not fully tax deductible in a single year). It would be an asset purchase and I don’t know how you depreciate the value of story rights. If Trump wrote a comic book based on the story, he (or Cohen) could write off the payment against the profits from selling the comic book.
But there are several hurdles to jump through to make that “crime” stick. Cohen admits Trump never made the payment to Daniels so the premise that Trump tried to “interfere with an election” (which isn’t a crime in an of itself it seems) doesn’t wash. It was technically Cohen who did the interfering, but again not a crime I am aware of. It is a tax matter, an accounting matter, and if it sticks it’s barely a crime at all. It should result in a fine not 32 felony charges.
Thanks MS!