The crime wasn’t the payment, it was the falsifying business records. And based solely on the information in this thread, the final signature for those false records did happen while he was in office in 2017.
Just because it happened when he was in office does not make it an official act, but thats their argument
I know someone in corporate McDonalds. They were pissed the instant they found out. They have a saying internally, “were not red or blue, were golden.” They intentionally don’t take political stances. This franchise owner acted without corporate blessing, and if I had to guess, that message was intentionally not passed up the chain.