Sen. Scott defends trip to New York to support Trump

LARGO, Fla. - Sen. Rick Scott is back from his trip to New York to support Donald Trump as he stands trial for not reporting hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.

"What he is going through is just despicable," Scott said while in New York.

"This all looks fishy," he said Monday during a campaign stop in Largo.

READ: Michael Cohen says Trump directed hush money payments during 2016 presidential campaign

He's digging in on the notion that then-candidate Trump paying Daniels to stay quiet about their tryst was an issue of accounting, as opposed to an attempt to keep a damaging story out of the news.

"I don't see how they have a case against the guy. "All they are saying is he should have put it in this account rather than that account," he said. "How is it criminal?"

Falsifying business records is not generally a felony unless it's used to cover up a second crime.

Trump's lawyers have argued that the payments were a private, family matter.

But a Grand Jury indicted Trump for not logging the $130,000 payment to Daniels as a political expenditure.

It was made through a shell company set up by Cohen on October 27th of 2016, eleven days before the election and twenty days after the Access Hollywood Tape was released.

READ: Barron Trump won’t be serving as a Florida delegate to the Republican convention after all

Trump's then-attorney, Michael Cohen, testified today that Trump said that, "Women will hate me. Guys will think it's cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign."

"Did they account for it the right way? That's the case," Scott said Monday. "First off, this is political persecution. The jury is going to make a decision what happened there."

Scott is connecting this trial to his own past, a Medicare fraud investigation his health care company faced in the 90s.

The government fined Columbia/HCA a record $1.7 billion.

Scott now insists that materialized because of his disapproval of the 1994 effort by the Clinton Administration to reform health care.

He insists that's what's happening to Trump.

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"They're trying to make that a crime," said Scott. "They've got a guy going to run this guy while he's running for president. This will only happen because this is a guy who's the number one political opponent of Biden."

Scott and Trump have both argued that because the prosecutor's office in New York is directed by an elected Democrat, it makes the entire investigation political.

They also question the timing of the charges-- and say federal prosecutors had already investigated and declined to bring a case.

The payments were made by Michael Cohen, who has pleaded guilty and served time in jail for making illegal campaign contributions as well as tax fraud, bank fraud, and lying to congress.

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