Trump wants the savage mob that draws energy from his hate-filled cheap entertainment rallies to believe he's some kind of a "law and order" candidate. Trump-- the guy who has spent an entire lifetime bulldozing any law and any order that's ever gotten in the way of whatever he wanted? That Trump. And his latest criminal behavior is infuriating me and should infuriate every American regardless of partisan preferences.What I'm talking about are politicians who believe they're above the law and can get away with soliciting campaign cash from foreigners. The two worst I've ever seen are Patrick Murphy and Donald Trump. Murphy, a "former" Republican currently masquerading as a Democrat, has had a substantial part of his political career paid for by one of Saudi Arabia's most powerful families, the billionaire Al Rashid bunch, who just really, really, really wanted their own man on the Intelligence Committee for some reason.Even Harry Reid tore up Al Rashid's $100,000 check but many other corrupt politicians are happy to take as much Saudi money as they can get their hands onMr. Trumpanzee is less targeted. He and his crooked sons are just flat out soliciting campaign cash all over the world. And now he's ignoring FEC warnings to stop. So what happens now? Jonathan Swan at The Hill reported yesterday that Mr. Trumpanzee is still "soliciting foreign donations despite multiple warnings and a criminal complaint filed with the Department of Justice."
On Sunday, an Australian member of parliament, Terri Butler, emailed The Hill the latest fundraising solicitation she’d received from the Trump campaign.The email, received on Aug. 14 just after midnight Australian time, went to Butler’s government email account. It asked her to make a campaign contribution to Trump so she could “join the highest ranks of our campaign as an Executive Member.”Butler told The Hill she has received several fundraising solicitations from the Trump campaign at her government email account.Butler is hardly the first foreign official to receive solicitations from the Trump campaign. Members of the United Kingdom Parliament, Peter Bottomley and Bob Blackman, have told The Hill that they've received numerous fundraising appeals on the Republican nominee's behalf....“The Trump campaign’s continuing solicitation of campaign contributions from people who are obviously foreign nationals is clearly illegal,” said Larry Noble, the general counsel for the non-partisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center.“Given the news reports, the complaint we filed with the [Federal Election Commission] and the letter we sent to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal investigation, his refusal to put a stop to the solicitations is compelling evidence of the campaign’s flagrant disregard for the law.”...The Campaign Legal Center and another non-partisan campaign finance watchdog, Democracy 21, sent a criminal complaint to the Department of Justice after The Hill and other news outlets revealed that the Trump campaign had not heeded the watchdogs’ first complaint, filed with the FEC on June 29.The Hill contacted the FEC and the Department of Justice on Monday, but neither body comments publicly on the status of investigations.“To protect the interests of those involved in a complaint, the law requires that any Commission action on an enforcement matter be kept strictly confidential until the case is resolved,” said FEC spokesman Christian Hilland.Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, said the Trump campaign’s foreign solicitations are unlike anything he’s seen in the 40 years that he’s monitored campaign finance.“It’s inexplicable and impossible to understand why the Trump campaign appears to still be illegally soliciting foreign donations after they have been put on notice numerous times that this is illegal,” Wertheimer said on Monday.“There is no ambiguity about the fact that these solicitations are illegal.”
This has got to stop-- and immediately. The entire FEC should be fired and replaced if they can't get something this straight-forward and clear handled. Why should they be getting taxpayer-funded salaries at all? And how does this tie in with Putin apparently paying the salary of Trump's campaign manager-- or whatever Paul Manafort's title is this week? We'll deal with how Manafort (and Tony Podesta) spread millions of dollars from Russia around the very easily corruptible American political system in a post tomorrow.