VICE News: Kanye West Is Breaking Campaign Finance Law and Keeping His GOP Backers a Secret

Kanye West’s presidential campaign continues to push to get him on the ballot in states across the country. But it’s now a full week late with its campaign finance filings, a move that’s allowing the shadowy organization to hide how deep the GOP efforts to back his spoiler campaign go.

The monthly campaign finance filing was due with the Federal Election Commission on August 20. But West’s campaign still hasn’t submitted the paperwork, a requirement for all presidential candidates that planned to raise or spend at least $100,000 on the campaign.

West filed a statement of candidacy in mid-July, and Republican operatives have helped secure him a spot on ballots in at least nine states, even as he’s missed deadlines in more than two dozen others. All that effort means his campaign almost certainly was legally required to file a monthly finance report that would show who he was paying — and give a more complete picture of what GOP operatives are supporting his campaign.

“He’s either violating the reporting requirements or doesn’t anticipate to spend $100,000 or more on his presidential campaign, and the latter part seems unlikely,” said Paul S. Ryan, the head of litigation at the good government group Common Cause. “He’s missed an FEC reporting deadline on August 20 and is in [likely] violation of the law.” …

But if West simply refused to comply, the FEC would have to step in and actually vote to bring him to court. Since Trump has failed to nominate enough people for a quorum on the FEC’s commission, that means the organization is totally toothless. And if his campaign continues to refuse to follow the law, it might be impossible to know exactly how deep the GOP’s involvement in West’s campaign is until well after the November election.

“The law wasn’t designed to deal with the wealthy spoiler candidate who’s trying to avoid disclosure to help another candidate,” said Ryan. “Kanye West isn’t the typical candidate so this enforcement mechanism isn’t going to work for his campaign.”