Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Watchdog Groups File FEC Complaint Over Trump Emails To Foreign Pols

Caitlin MacNeal June 29, 2016, 1:56 PM EDT

Two watchdog groups, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, said they will file Wednesday a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, arguing that the Donald Trump campaign has broken federal law by sending fundraising emails to foreign elected officials.

"Donald Trump should have known better," Paul S. Ryan, the deputy executive director at the Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement. "It is a no-brainer that it violates the law to send fundraising emails to members of a foreign government on their official foreign government email accounts, and yet, that's exactly what Trump has done repeatedly."

Fred Werthemier, the president of Democracy 21, said that Trump's fundraising pleas to foreign members of parliament are "a strange and unique development that we have not seen before in campaign fundraising."

Campaign finance law prohibits campaigns from knowingly accepting or soliciting contributions from foreign nationals. It's not clear whether the Trump campaign purposefully sent the emails to foreign members of parliament.

The complaint from the two watchdog groups notes that elected officials in Iceland, Scotland, Britain and Australia have received the emails.

Members of parliament in Denmark and Finland also say they have received the fundraising pleas.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fec-complaint-trump-emails-foreign-fundraising