Complaint: Trump Making Illegal Secret Payments, Including To His Own Family [View all]
(HuffPost) So far, $216.6 million of spending by Trump’s campaign and related committees has flowed through just two firms, with no disclosure of how that money was spent.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s campaign is violating federal election law by funneling close to a quarter-billion dollars to date through private companies in order to hide the ultimate recipients of the money, including the wife of one of his sons and the girlfriend of another, a watchdog group charged in a complaint filed Tuesday.
“The money is being laundered through corporations run by top Trump campaign officials,” said Brendan Fischer, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center. “That has the effect of keeping the public in the dark as to a big chunk of Trump campaign spending.”
The group’s complaint with the Federal Election Commission asks for an investigation to put an end to the practice and to punish the campaign with fines.
How quickly any of that might happen, though, is an open question, given that the commission currently does not have a quorum to take official actions. Even with one in place, investigations can last for several years.
According to the complaint, both Trump’s reelection campaign and a related fundraising group, the “Trump Make America Great Again Committee,” are breaking federal campaign law by running payments through former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale’s private firm as well as American Made Media Consultants, a company created specifically to place ads and buy related services for the campaign.
Parscale’s companies have already received $39 million from Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and their joint fundraising committees, according to a HuffPost analysis of FEC filings from Jan. 20, 2017, through the end of June 2020. American Made Media Consultants has been paid $177.6 million from those same committees through that time period.
Among those payments: $180,000 a year each to Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and to Lara Trump, the wife of his second son, Eric Trump.
(Read More) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-fec-complaint_n_5f1b5264c5b6296fbf42ac01
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