FEC Refuses To Punish Trump For Misusing Charitable Funds Meant For Veterans

The Federal Elections Commission has decided that they will NOT be going after Donald Trump for allegedly misusing more than $2 million in charitable funds that were meant for veterans. This is actually a scandal that originated before Trump even won the White House, and for a while it was being investigated by prosecutors in New York. But, as has become commonplace, Donald Trump walks away unscathed. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The federal elections commission has decided that they are not going to move along with a potentially criminal investigation into Donald Trump making this the second time this week that Donald Trump has actually received some good news on the investigatory front. This one of course is related to an event that actually happened before the Iowa caucuses in 2016. Donald Trump had gone out and he had raised, I believe it was what, $5.8 million for veterans groups and this again was before the Iowa caucuses 2016. So he raises nearly $6 million, well, only takes half of it, about $2.8 million, and he puts it aside to the, of course now defunct Trump foundation. And then right before the Iowa caucuses, he had his campaign manager at the time, Corey Lewandowski, tell Allen Weisselberg which veterans groups in Iowa to steer that $2.8 million towards to give Donald Trump a better chance of winning that Iowa caucus.

Easy enough, right? Well, for those of you who understand campaign finance law, you understand that what I just explained is 100% illegal because you had a charitable organization coordinating with a political campaign. The political campaign telling the charitable organization how to spend money to best benefit the political campaign. One hundred percent illegal, no matter which way you slice it. All the way back in 2018 when you had Barbara Underwood as the New York attorney general, she had launched this investigation, she had made the determination and the recommendation to the FEC telling them we've got pretty significant evidence of criminal activity here. Right? This is very clearly a violation of campaign finance laws. I turn it over to you now, FEC, because this is clearly your domain, your decision, here you go. We already did the work for you. All you gotta do is act on it really. Well then the FEC stalled, um, it was short many members, so the investigation could not continue. And then of course recently the still Republican controlled FEC voted along party lines to drop the matter altogether.

So it's done. It's over with. Donald Trump gets away with it. Legal, illegal, doesn't matter at this point. He did it. He's not gonna face any kind of justice. So at this point, really, what is the point of even having campaign finance laws? We see people violate these kinds of laws all the time. Hell, we've seen Donald Trump and his, his buddies violate these laws, at least on the surface it appears they violated the laws. Of course nobody's been charged. So you can't exactly say they have. But what's the point? If we have an FEC that has now become a political organization where they can even vote along party lines, then these laws don't exist. They only apply to poor people, not to rich people. That's the thing. That's the big takeaway here. If you've got the money, if you've got the power, if you've got the clout, you can get away with it. Any one of us violates a, you know, election, campaign finance law, excuse me, we're gonna get popped for it. We're not gonna get off that easily. They're not gonna drag out an investigation for six years. They're gonna look at it for a couple hours and then slap the handcuffs on you. That's what's gonna happen. But as Trump himself says, when you're rich, powerful, they let you do it.