Donald Trump is going down for his campaign finance violations – but the FEC was never going to be the one to do it

| 12:26 am EDT May 7, 2021
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On Thursday the Federal Election Commission announced that it was not taking action against Donald Trump for his campaign finance violations in relation to the Stormy Daniels payoff. This was entirely expected. The FEC has been toothless for years, and couldn’t have done anything more than slap Trump on the wrist, which would have been pointless. Taking Trump down was never about the FEC.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has a grand jury empaneled against Donald Trump and is in the process of criminally indicting him. The charges are said to all be financial in nature. If you want to know where the specific focus is, consider that the DA’s office has met with Michael Cohen at least eight times and counting – and he’s the one who helped set up the Daniels payment to begin with. While campaign finance violations are a federal crime, the state has numerous ways of indirectly nailing Trump for the transactions in question.

The FEC had no power to do anything of substance on this. But the Manhattan DA’s office has the power to put Trump in prison for his campaign finance violations and his various other financial crimes. That’s a heck of a lot better than whatever minor thing the FEC could have done to him, which is why this was never about the FEC.

Since the day Trump lost the election, Palmer Report has consistently explained that it’s the Manhattan DA’s office who is on track to take Donald Trump down with the kind of cut and dried criminal charges that no one survives at trial. That’s still the case. If the DOJ and/or the Fulton County Georgia DA end up indicting Trump as well for various crimes, that’ll be gravy. But the FEC was never a part of the picture when it comes to putting Trump in prison. The FEC’s announcement was a formality and didn’t change anything with regard to putting Trump behind bars.