ABC News: How Trump’s controversial anti-immigrant video skirts rules for political ads

President Donald Trump has pushed the boundaries of campaign finance rules with a controversial new video that accuses Democrats of blindly opening U.S. borders to undocumented immigrants, even those who kill police officers.

Unlike typical political ads, nowhere in this video does the president declare who paid for it. Campaign finance experts said that by limiting it to his social media feed, Trump has found a gap in campaign finance laws that are intended to let voters know who sponsors the messages they see. …

“This shows there appears to be a gap in the law – a presidential candidate like Donald Trump could be blasting out these campaign commercial-like videos to millions of views, but viewers would not have real-time information about who is paying for them,” Steven Spaulding of government watchdog group Common Cause told ABC News.

On the same day Trump tweeted the Bracamotes video, he also posted a similar campaign-ad styled video on his Twitter feed with a hashtag #JOBSNOTMOBS.

“So, we might start seeing a new trend of political campaigns blasting out videos to millions of viewers and voters will not have information to know who is paying for it to better evaluate the message,” Spaulding added.