Daily Beast: State GOPs Can’t Explain Millions In ‘Trump Victory’ Cash

Months after the Federal Election Commission notified several GOP state parties of major gaps in their 2020 fundraising and spending reports, the committees are correcting their numbers—but they still can’t explain why the discrepancies occurred.

The issue has raised new questions about possible abuse of a longstanding campaign finance loophole that allows wealthy megadonors to cut massive checks. Last year a number of Republican state parties failed to disclose transfers in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars, which violates reporting requirements.

“There are layers of problems here, but the basic question is whether the state parties complied with federal disclosure requirements,” Paul Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at election reform advocacy group Common Cause, told The Daily Beast. …

The FEC has previously issued fines for similar infringements. Given the amount of money involved, the penalties could be steep.

“A ‘knowing and willful’ violation of federal campaign finance law is punishable by a fine of up to 200 percent of any contribution or expenditure involved in such violation,” Ryan said.

There’s another twist: the bank accounts. In April, Axios reported that those omissions are raising new questions about whether the party treasurers—who must sign off on those accounts—knew their committees had opened an account at Chain Bridge. That could expose them legally, Ryan said.

“Campaign finance law would be undermined if a state committee was using an account and not disclosing it, which treasurers must do under penalty of perjury.” Ryan said. “It would be even more severe if the RNC was setting up an account and not telling the state party about it.” …

The reason for the apparent shortcuts is hard to discern.

“I can’t think of many reasons why they would set this up,” said Ryan. “They may find it easier, or could be trying to save bank fees. But it could also be a way to increase the RNC’s haul. Suppose you had a state party that wouldn’t participate, but the RNC wanted to involve another state so it could pull in more money. This would allow them to do so.”