President Trump's disgraced former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, copped a plea deal on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan that includes his making a criminal campaign contribution in the form of hush money to Stormy Daniels.

Mark Levin and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission Brad Smith discussed this "non-crime" on The Mark Levin Show Tuesday night.  Levin correctly points out that Cohen pleaded guilty to "a non-existent crime."

Brad Smith later tweeted, "No matter how you cut it, paying blackmail to an alleged mistress is not an obligation that exists because you are a candidate, and hence not a campaign expenditure."

Democrat and Washington fixture Lanny Davis, one of Cohen's lawyers, tweeted on Tuesday, "If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?"

That was bad judgment by Lanny, as I explained: "Lanny's tweet helps Trump, hurts Lanny.  His client pled to a 'crime' that is neither a campaign contribution nor a crime.  Lanny exposes political motive of that plea deal."

I later tweeted:

Legal settlements are not criminal campaign contributions.  If they were, why did Congress (taxpayers, actually) fund them?  Deep State now using Star Chamber tactics.  America doesn't make law by confessions.  Shame on DOJ/#LannyDavis.  Unethical/unlawful.

If in fact legal settlements of personal matters are illegal campaign contributions, then the list of guilty politicians certainly is long.  And, as we learned in 2017 about the sexual harassment settlements paid by Congress using a slush fund from taxpayer dollars, the leaders in the House of Representatives of both political parties are implicated by the $17 million in payments over a period of 20 years and at least 268 settlements.

The Deep State is indeed acting like the Star Chamber, getting people to confess to nonexistent crimes to help ensnare others for political reasons.

There is no more intimidating opponent to the Deep State than Donald Trump.  Every time the Deep State and its media vultures think they have their "aha!" moment, Trump turns it around on them to expose their own corruption, lawlessness, and hypocrisy.

This situation won't even be close to being Trump's biggest challenge.  In fact, I think he's going to enjoy dishing it back out, and the number of his supporters will grow because that's what they want from him.

Photo credit: Max Goldberg.