“A Banner Proxy Season for Political Disclosure and Accountability”
Bruce F. Freed, Dan Carroll, and Karl J. Sandstrom blog.
Category Archives: campaign finance
“De Blasio used state account he controls as campaign slush fund”
The NY
Post discusses some questionable state-PAC spending on a federal race.
A related
Politico story notes that de Blasio is claiming that his presidential campaign
launch video was not a presidential campaign expense.
“Prosecutors Are Asked Why Trump Wasn’t Indicted for Campaign Violations”
The
WSJ covers the House
Oversight letter.
And now House Oversight wants to know how OLC’s stance on indicting the President factored in to the NY campaign finance case
Following on this story, the letter is here.
“After Publishing Strong Evidence of Trump’s Campaign Finance Crimes, DOJ Closes Case Without Explanation”
Paul Ryan in
Just Security on the announced end of the Stormy Daniels campaign finance case.
“Prosecutors weighed DOJ policy blocking indictment of a sitting president in closing Trump hush-money probe”
And maybe there’s an
explanation after all.
“John Paul Stevens Was Right: Citizens United Opened the Door to Foreign Money in U.S. Elections”
The Intercept traces
funding from foreign nationals through American corporations to super PACs.
The latest Citizens United constitutional amendment proposal
Relatedly, the latest proposed amendment to overturn Citizens United was filed yesterday. It would ban private funding of support for or opposition to candidates if the funding isn’t a donation to a candidate’s campaign. I’m not a fan.
“Judiciary chair demands Hope Hicks clarify closed-door testimony”
On whether she had direct knowledge of payments to Stormy Daniels, or whether she was “present” when Trump discussed Daniels.
The documents unsealed in the Cohen warrant today seem to suggest there may be more to the story.
2020 Presidential fundraising hits a new record
The Campaign Finance Institute parses
the 2Q returns.
“William Barr’s donations to Senate Republicans spiked just before they confirmed him as attorney general”
Interesting.
And according to the story, unusual:
Neither Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, nor Eric Holder—the three prior attorneys general—made payments to either party committees or senators ahead of confirmation hearings and votes. Holder gave $250 to the Democratic Senatorial… Continue reading
“Court documents show close contact between Cohen and Trump during hush-money arrangements”
Unsealed copies of the Cohen search warrant materials were
released today based on the close of the campaign finance investigation. Here’s the cover letter. Zoe Tillman’s got links
to the docs.
Phone
records in the documents show Cohen… Continue reading
“Feds end investigation into Trump Org and hush money payments”
“Diversifying the Donor Pool: How Did Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers Program Reshape Participation in Municipal Campaign Finance?”
A
new paper about Seattle’s campaign finance voucher program, from Brian
McCabe and Jennifer Heerwig. I’m looking
forward to reading this one.
The abstract:
In this paper, we evaluate whether an innovative new campaign finance program in Seattle, Washington shifted… Continue reading