ABC News: How Bloomberg could help Joe Biden take on Trump

Taking aim at President Trump on Twitter Thursday, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg tweeted an edited video mashup splicing together movie clips and dialogue to deliver the message that Democrats would unseat Trump next fall — ending with the hashtags “#Dump Trump” and “Go Joe.”

It was the first – and definitely not the last time – Bloomberg has targeted Trump on Biden’s behalf.

Bloomberg has vowed to spend “whatever it takes” to defeat Donald Trump and has pledged to help former Biden become president since dropping out of the race. …

“Bloomberg can keep his offices open and his staff employed–all to support Biden–with Bloomberg continuing to pay for it, but the work needs to be done independently of the Biden campaign,” Paul S. Ryan of nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause told ABC News. “In other words, Bloomberg can run a pro-Biden super PAC, using his campaign office space and campaign staff. Bloomberg’s pro-Biden effort staff couldn’t coordinate it’s spending with the Biden campaign.”

“What Bloomberg can not do is simply merge his team and offices with the Biden campaign, with Bloomberg continuing to pay for the operations. That would be an illegally-large in-kind contribution,” he said.

Ryan said Bloomberg cannot convert his campaign to a super PAC group supporting Biden, and would need to file new paperwork to do so and spend to help Biden — without any coordination with Biden or the Democratic National Committee.