Watchdog group files FEC complaint against Trump campaign's fundraising emails

Washington Examiner ^ | June 28, 2016 | GABBY MORRONGIELLO

[lowbridge]

A government watchdog group has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Donald Trump's presidential campaign, following multiple reports of foreign officials receiving fundraising solicitations from the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

"Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign committee is violating black-letter federal law by sending campaign fundraising emails to foreign nationals — including foreign politicians — in at least Iceland, Scotland, Australia and Britain," the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center said in a statement on Wednesday.

Members of the British Parliament first complained about receiving fundraising emails from the Trump this week, shortly after the billionaire returned to the U.S. from a weekend trip to Scotland. Now, lawmakers in Australia, Iceland, Denmark and Finland are claiming they, too, received email requests for donations from Trump's campaign.

One Australian member of parliament, Tim Watts, claimed on Twitter that he's received more than four emails from the Trump campaign since last Friday, and that other Australian politicians have seen emails from the campaign pass through heir inboxes as well.

-snip

"This is a strange and unique development that we have not seen before in campaign fundraising," noted Fred Wertheimer, president of the non-profit Democracy 21. "The FEC needs to investigate how many of these illegal solicitations were sent, to whom they were sent, whether any illegal foreign contributions have been received and, if so, whether the contributions have been returned."

[UCANSEE2]

And what email lists were they on that Trump is using?

Remember when G-2 hacked the DNC mailing lists ?

[Logical me]

F the communists club of the FCC. Hope Trump as President disbands the whole club and reorganize.

[SoFloFreeper]

Waste of time.

[M Kehoe]

In the mean time, the house of Saud is funding the witch’s campaign.

5.56mm

[monkeyshine]

If he accepts foreign donations, then maybe the FEC should investigate. But is there any precedent for investigating email solicitations many of which I am sure are just from purchased lists of email addresses? I am no fan of the current campaign finance laws but don’t think there is any smoking gun here based on the evidence presented in the article. Emails are sent by the hundreds of thousands - the vetting has to be on the receiving side when the money comes in, not just by having some improper names on a list.

[publius911]

"This is a strange and unique development that we have not seen before in campaign fundraising," noted Fred Wertheimer, president of the non-profit Democracy 21. "The FEC needs to investigate how many of these illegal solicitations were sent, to whom they were sent, whether any illegal foreign contributions have been received and, if so, whether the contributions have been returned."

After I stopped laughing (it took a while,) I couldn't help wondering if these non-partisan ethics checkers have looked into ALL the foreign donors who laundered hundreds of millions$ in contributions to the Hillary through the Clinton Criminal Enterprises Foundation, Inc. ...

The suspense is killing me.