[EL] An overview of campaign finance laws relevant to the Muller Investigation

[Doug Spencer]

Matt,

Common Cause has been all over this. Although their legal arguments haven't
been fleshed out in court yet, your students might find it interesting to
see the allegations in the Stephanie Clifford and Karen MacDougald cases as
a complaint (e.g., see here
<https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CC-v.-Trump-Stormy_AMENDED-Complaint_3.12.18.pdf>).
And
to see how Common Cause has pushed the DOJ to intervene
<https://www.commoncause.org/resource/common-cause-v-trump-cohen-stormy-daniels/>
as
well. It should set up a nice discussion about both the substance (should
the phrase "anything of value" be void for vagueness?) and the general
process (concerned citizens/orgs file complaint with FEC, and if it feels
compelled the FEC can independently enforcement and/or sometimes will
itself file suit in the DDC. DOJ may also intervene in certain cases).

There are links to Common Cause-authored memos and op-eds about Roger
Stone's alleged connection to WikiLeaks, the campaign's alleged false
expense reporting, and alleged foreign solicitation at this page
<https://www.commoncause.org/campaigns/campaign-finance/>.

Because the Trump campaign has yet to be held liable for these alleged
violations, most of the available materials are on the "offensive" side.
Defenders of Trump and critics of Common Cause (not a perfectly overlapping
group) have certainly generated some press (see, e.g., here
<https://www.newsweek.com/rand-paul-defends-trump-campaign-finance-violations-shouldnt-be-criminal-1251256>
, here
<https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/trumps-ex-lawyer-didnt-violate-campaign-finance-laws-and-neither-did>,
and here
<https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-did-not-violate-campaign-finance-law-despite-what-prosecutors-say>)
but there's no simple clearinghouse similar to what Common Cause has
compiled.

One more thought is to filter the Election Law Blog for all stories related
to Trump (see here <https://electionlawblog.org/?s=Trump&x=22&y=11>). This
should be helpful if you're interested in media coverage of the campaign
finance issues.

HTH,
Doug

-----
*Douglas M. Spencer*
*Professor of Law & Public Policy*
University of Connecticut

Visiting Professor, 2018-2019
Harris Public Policy
University of Chicago

http://www.dougspencer.org
<https://outlook.office.com/mail/inbox/id/AAQkADdjMTM4NDQ4LTcwMWItNDdjNS04NzE5LTRjM2M4ZGVkYmRlNwAQAJgVtPZDv7xDidqBTuvM5qo%3D>

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 3:24 PM Matthew Sag <matthewsag at gmail.com> wrote:

> Is anyone aware of a good resource that summarizes the potential ways in
> which members of the Trump campaign may have, violating the
> campaign-finance laws in relation to the 2016 presidential election? I
> thought this might be a good way of introducing my election law students to
> material that can otherwise seem a little bit dry and technical.
>
> Your assistance would be appreciated!
>
> *Matthew Sag*
> *Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at **Loyola University Chicago School
> of Law; **Associate Director for Intellectual Property, Institute for
> Consumer Antitrust Studies; Member of the** American Law Institute; **Co-founder
> of ScotusOA.com, a website devoted to empirical analysis and forecasts of
> US Supreme Court oral arguments. For links to publications, biographical
> details, see MatthewSag.com. Working papers also available on SSRN.com.*
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20190205/8e3947dc/attachment.html>