Daily Beast: Feds Are ‘Begging’ Congress to Stop Trump Donation Scam

While federal campaign finance regulators aren’t known for their aggression, things have gotten so bad that they’re practically begging Congress to give them more weapons to go after political scams—including a recurring donations scheme favored by Donald Trump that has fleeced unwitting supporters for years.

But the recurring donations tactic is just one issue the Federal Election Commission highlighted last week when it published its draft legislation recommendations, the legal wish list the agency sends Congress each year.

It’s not the first time the FEC has floated many of those same proposals, which include requests to shut legal loopholes related to the personal use of political funds, so-called “scam PACs,” and straw donor schemes. The agency asked Congress to put more muscle behind those laws last year, too, but lawmakers seem even more averse to the idea than the notoriously sluggish FEC, whose routine partisan deadlocks over enforcement have led critics to declare the agency “broken.” …

Viki Harrison, director of constitutional convention and protecting dissent programs at Common Cause, said the FEC’s request should be a “wake-up call” for Congress.

“This is an ever-changing field, and the bad actors are always going to try to find a way around the law, but these are all really good policies, and Congress should have implemented them,” Harrison told The Daily Beast, adding that, after multiple requests have gone unanswered, it “sounds like they’re begging” for help. …

Harrison said “there’s a lot of support from the public on the recurring donations issue, where they’re absolutely targeting elderly donors and using algorithms to do that.”

Congress, however, hasn’t acted. Neither, it appears, have many Republicans.

Following investigations by multiple state attorneys general—and a subsequent Minnesota lawsuit against GOP digital small-dollar fundraising behemoth WinRed—Democrats have scaled back on the tactic. …

And so, like last year, the FEC’s draft request asks Congress to ban the practice and require more clarity with donors when asking for consent and withdrawing funds.

“No one wants this, on either side of the aisle,” Harrison said, noting that the government’s failure to address what she called “common sense” ethical concerns only further entrenches voter cynicism.

She pointed to scam PACs as a case where “common sense” hasn’t made much headway. …

“The divisiveness and the absolute cynicism, it’s just too much,” Harrison said. She compared the FEC’s enforcement division to a “graveyard” and said that political financing plays “a huge role” in alienating voters, because “people are just expecting someone to be sketchy.” …

And the FEC makes the same point to Congress, writing—as it did last year—that they’ve seen “a substantial number of instances where individuals with access to the funds received by political committees have used such funds to pay for their own personal expenses.”

The proposed remedy would extend the ban from campaign committees specifically to “any political committee,” which would account for leadership PACs, like Save America.

But Harrison pointed out that the FEC is asking a favor from a hostile audience—elected officials, many of whom enjoy the personal benefits afforded by their leadership PAC accounts.

“You’re asking people in power to voluntarily give that power up,” she said.