New York University law professor Melissa Murray lamented on Sunday that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is descending down "a death spiral of stupid" after the former New York mayor argued that Donald Trump did not break campaign finance laws by paying hush money to alleged mistresses during the 2016 campaign.
While appearing on ABC News Sunday morning, Giuliani said that Donald Trump cannot be charged with campaign finance violations because paying off mistresses is not a campaign expense by definition.
Murray first pointed out that Giuliani had been wrong to assert that "collusion" is not a crime.
"Giuliani is correct that collusion [with Russia] is not a federal crime writ large," Murray said. "But all of the activities that go into collusion -- misleading statements, collaborating with a foreign government, directing payments from a foreign government to a campaign -- all of those things are federal crimes and the conspiracy to engage with others to do this is also a crime."
Murray went on to say that Giuliani was also incorrect to suggest that prosecutors have a "weak" case on campaign finance violations because Trump had paid only "a little money" to his alleged mistresses.
"Is that really the issue?" Murray asked. "I mean, we have a representative of the president of the United States basically admitting to paying women money to not disclose the fact that they have been in some kind of untoward [relationship] with the president."
"And his response and his defense is that if it had been more money, it would have been more serious," she continued. "We are living in strange times. I mean, we are in a death spiral of stupid. This is insanity."
