Hillary’s Foreign Contributions

Dissecting Hillary’s Campaign Finance Woes by Benjamin Barr, 9/3/15, Townhall

 

Earlier this week, Project Veritas Action released an important video detailing how the Hillary for America campaign willingly accepted foreign political contributions. Many journalists have created a good deal of ruckus about the supposed lack of seriousness of this exposé. Thanks to this commotion—or deliberate obfuscation—a great deal of confusion needs to be sorted out.

 

Project Veritas Action caught a Canadian citizen wanting to make a contribution to the Hillary campaign at its Roosevelt Island event. After some discussion, high-ranking campaign staffers and the Canadian came to an agreement to make the political contribution through a “straw donor.” That is, the American donor would give $40 of her own money and $35 of the Canadian’s all under her own name. However the Hillary campaign may spin it, this is simply illegal under the Federal Election Campaign Act.

 

The Hillary narrative goes something like this: nothing prohibits someone from buying campaign merchandise and giving it to a foreigner as a gift. That’s a fun story, but has no relevance here. It is not a “gift” to buy someone something when they give you the money to buy it for them. As is made evident in the video, the Canadian wants to make a political contribution to Hillary for America. And as is so common, campaigns provide “campaign swag” for certain levels of political contributions. No doubt about it—money given to the Hillary for America committee is not funding a new fashion line. It is funding her political campaign.

 

Federal law is abundantly clear about these issues. Candidates for federal office and their campaigns may not accept even a dollar of foreign money in political contributions. The Veritas Action video illustrates that Hillary’s staff was aware of this prohibition, discussed it, and decided to create a scheme to evade it. . Not serious? The law also prohibits the use of “straw men” contribution schemes where one person makes a political contribution for another. This kind of scheme landed conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza in jail. Apparently the law had very serious application for him, but is not so strict for Hillary.

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/benjaminbarr/2015/09/03/dissecting-hillarys-campaign-finance-woes-n2047652?utm_ source =ra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl