FEC fingers Donald Trump for $19 million in illegal fundraising

| 10:32 pm EST January 12, 2017
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The Donald Trump campaign for president has received its final report from the Federal Election Commission regarding its fundraising records and procedures. That report dated January 10th, 2017 has also been posted on the FEC official website and is available for public consumption. The first sign that something might be terribly wrong: the letter from the FEC to Trump is a whopping two hundred and forty-eight pages long — and most of it consists of itemized lists of illegal fundraising.

The FEC is accusing the Donald Trump campaign of having illegally fundraised a total of $19,399,482.17 during the final reporting period alone, which it failed to document. The various itemized infractions are classified as being everything from “Excessive, Prohibited, and Impermissible Contributions” to “Contributions from Unregistered Organizations” to “Contributions from Possible Prohibited Entities” to “Excessive Contributions from Authorized Committees of Other Federal Candidates” to just plain “Excessive Contributions from Individuals.”

The FEC report then goes on to list each and every one of the violations, by name, over the course of 248 pages. But those who oppose Donald Trump shouldn’t get too excited, as these kinds of violations never result in a candidate being charged with crimes, or being “disqualified” from office (because there’s no such thing). Rather, the money merely ends up having to be refunded if the candidate can’t explain it away. But it does mean that Trump is suddenly on the hook for $19 million. Considering how flat broke he is, this will hurt him in the wallet.