In 2020, the
#Trump campaign reported paying hundreds of millions of dollars to two companies, one set up by a former campaign manager and the other by campaign officials.
Neither the campaign nor the companies themselves reported specifically what the money was being spent on.
The
#Campaign #Legal #Center filed a complaint to the F.E.C., accusing the Trump campaign of using the companies as “
#conduits” to
#conceal other vendors.
The commission’s
#general #counsel recommended that the F.E.C. find that the campaign had broken the law by misreporting payments, and begin an
#investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationships with vendors and subvendors.
But the commission
#deadlocked last year in a vote on the matter, which meant no action could be taken.
The Campaign Legal Center sued the commission, but a federal judge — while expressing sympathy for the desire of transparency — dismissed the case late last year, saying that the commissioners had discretion.
“It is a lot easier to follow the money when you have a paper trail,” the judge opened his opinion.
The Campaign Legal Center has appealed.
https://campaignlegal.org