If anyone in America still needed an explanation of how rich people use their money to silence others, President Donald Trump has you covered.
In a series of tweets Thursday morning, he laid out the process by which “celebrities and people of wealth” like himself use non
On the surface, the most shocking thing about these tweets seems to be Trump’s apparent admission that he reimbursed Cohen, who had paid Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump. Cohen had claimed that he paid the money out of his own pocket, and Trump had previously said he knew nothing about the payment.
But even more shocking than that admission is the fact that Thursday’s tweets are a totally straightforward explanation of how powerful people like Trump can use their wealth to manipulate others and cover up any information they want hidden. It’s essentially the same process by which producer Harvey Weinstein and other wealthy men have been able to hide allegations of harassment and other misconduct for years. The result: Men with money can abuse ordinary people and face no repercussions for their actions, beyond a few payouts here and there.
Both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who also says she had an affair with Trump, have helped expose this system by suing to break their non
Trump just gave America an explainer on how rich people use NDAs
Trump admits in his tweets that, through Cohen, he entered into a non
Trump also maintained that Daniels’s claims of an affair are false, and as Vox’s Matt Yglesias points out, Trump is basically saying he’s pretty easy to blackmail since he’s apparently willing to pay large sums of money to keep people from saying things that aren’t even true.
But leaving aside the question of whether Daniels is telling the truth, Trump is completely correct that NDAs and other similar legal settlements have become a popular way for rich people (and powerful companies) to keep normal people quiet. Both Weinstein and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly used legal settlements to keep allegations of sexual misconduct from becoming public, according to the New York Times. As Daniel Hemel wrote at Vox in October, Fox News also tried to use confidentiality clauses in contracts to keep harassment claims against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes out of the public eye.
Trump is also a reportedly a big fan of the NDA, and not just for women who accuse him of affairs. He has allegedly
Sourse: vox.com
