Eliza Newlin Carney for TAP:

In legal terms, Bernie Sanders’s complaint that Hillary Clinton’s joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee improperly benefits her campaign doesn’t withstand close scrutiny.

The Sanders camp’s professed shock that the Hillary Victory Fund is collecting contributions “as high as $353,400 or more” says less about Clinton’s fundraising than it does about the near-total deregulation of the nation’s campaign-finance system. Sanders lawyer Brad C. Deutsch’s letter to the DNC cites no actual rules violations, and manages to contradict itself….

Nevertheless, the Sanders-Clinton dustup over the Hillary Victory Fund, which hasraised $60.6 million to be divvied up between the DNC and 32 state party committees, spotlights a type of high-dollar fundraising that is ripe for abuse and has not been seen since the soft-money days of the 1990s. Thanks to a 2014 Supreme Court ruling, and to the Senate’s quiet move that same year to blow the lid off political party contributions, the parties are pocketing six- and seven-figure checks from donors—and lawmakers and candidates are helping them raise it.