July 29 (UPI) — A campaign finance watchdog group on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission accusing President Donald Trump’s campaign of laundering $170 million in campaign spending.
The complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C., said the Trump campaign and an authorized joint financing committee broke the law by spending the campaign funds through firms headed by Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, without disclosing the exact expenditures.
“The campaign reported millions in payment — American Made and Parscale Strategy — which disbursed the funds to the campaign’s ultimate vendors,” the CLC said. “Ultimately, this hid millions in payments to companies engaged in significant work for the campaign, as well as payments to Trump family members or associates like Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle.”
According to the complaint, the Trump campaign has “in several instances” described other firms as major contractors providing services to the Trump campaign, while those names did not appear on reports filed with the FEC.
“For example, Trump campaign officials have spoken publicly about directing and managing the development of a mobile app produced by the software company Phunware, yet the Trump campaign has not reported direct payments to the company,” the complaint states.
Pascale dismissed the complaint as “political theater” in a statement to CNN, and Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said that American Made Media Consultants is “a campaign vendor responsible for arranging and executing media buys” and does not earn any commissions or fees.
“It builds efficiencies and saves the campaign money by providing these in-house services that otherwise would be done by outside vendors,” Murtaugh said. “The campaign reports all payments to [American Made Media Consultants] as required by the FEC. The campaign complies with all campaign finance laws and FEC regulations.”
