In a recent interview with Newsweek, attorney Eric Anderson explained that Trump lying about his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal is going to pose a problem for him.

Not just because that’s the crime he’s accused of in his first criminal trial. The prosecution says that he did so in order to better his chances in the 2016 election, which would be a crime if proven (it’s proven).

But the defense maintains that the payments — and the non-disclosure agreement Daniels signed — were completely legal. And the argument they’re using is that Trump was actually simply trying to hide his affairs from his wife.

That’s ridiculous on its face, says Anderson.

Trump had his former lawyer Michael Cohen pay off the actress, then reimbursed him $130,000. Cohen has both said this in public and is ready to testify to it.

“The defense’s problem is the subterfuge regarding the payments. The odds that Melania was going to go through the Trump bank records are none to none,” Anderson said. “Arguably, there was no reason for such an intricate manner of making payments to Daniels and then hiding them as income for Cohen.”

“The NDA, legal or otherwise, is not the problem. It is just one part of a larger series of events designed to mislead. The question is, who were they trying to mislead and why?”

Because the real issue isn’t that Trump paid somebody off to hide his affair from his wife. The issue is whether he did it to improve his odds in the election. If that was the reason, then it’s a campaign finance violation. That’s a criminal offense.

“Remember that the actual charge here is not giving hush money to a porn [adult film] star. There is nothing illegal about that. The charge is that these payments and the cover-up were unreported campaign expenses constituting business fraud among other offenses.

“This is a tricky and very technical case, and it may be hard for the average person to care about the allegations. The prosecution’s job is to make the jury care about the crime. Part of the job of the defense is to get a jury to think: ‘So what?’ regarding the alleged acts and to agree that the actions do not constitute a crime.”

There’s almost no chance that Melania was in any danger of finding out about his affairs — if she didn’t already know.