Recent Fundraiser Featuring Trump May Have Broken The Law

Recently, a nonprofit group called Border911 held a fundraiser that featured Donald Trump as a speaker. The group was formed by a former member of Donald Trump's administration, and their goal is to stop illegal immigration. But featuring Trump at their recent fundraiser, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, could mean that the group violated IRS rules by getting directly involved in the promotion of a candidate or Party. The group swears that any promotion of a candidate was unintentional, but the law doesn't care. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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

Donald Trump may have a very serious problem with a recent fundraiser that he attended. It was not a fundraiser that he put on, but it was put on by a nonprofit group called Border 9 1 1, which was actually founded last year by Donald Trump's former Immigration and Customs enforcement Chief Tom Holman. And Mr. Holman had this fundraiser, it was a, uh, tickets were $1,200 up to a hundred thousand dollars to raise money for his non-profit group that's not allowed to be involved in politics. They can only push issues, not parties or candidates. And he invited Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President to speak at his nonprofit fundraiser. Now, if you do not understand why that series of words that I said might be illegal, let me explain it a little bit better. Border 9 1 1 is registered with the IRS as a 5 0 1 C3 organization. They're nonprofit. You ain't gotta pay taxes, wonderful for them, right?

Because they're an advocacy group. We are just pushing the issue. We don't like people coming into the country illegally. So we encourage voters to vote on that issue. We're not endorsing a party, we're not endorsing a candidate because if we do that, that is illegal and we will get taxed on all the money we have raised. And if any of the money we raised went to some of the people who I don't know may have spoken at our event like Donald Trump, they will be taxed on that as well and possibly face other criminal issues. So yeah, I'd say it's a big problem when a nonprofit group invites the political, uh, uh, the nominee for a major political party to come speak at their event, especially when you already had an existing relationship with that individual by serving in their administration. And if politics were discussed at your event, that would also violate that law.

Now, as it stands right now, we do not have audio of Donald Trump's speech. We do not have video of Donald Trump's speech. We don't have a transcript. But if he got up on that stage, if anybody did, including Vik remiss Swami who also spoke, if they pushed a political party, if they pushed a certain candidate over a different candidate or any candidate even running unopposed, that's illegal. So I think this is a pretty big deal, but you know, who doesn't think it's a big deal? Mr. Holman and his lawyer? Because here's the statement. They said, uh, Holman told a B, C news that any problematic messaging was

Unintentional. He then added, we're making changes quickly to ensure we stay in compliance with federal rules. His lawyer said this, they understand now that they can't endorse a candidate either overtly or covertly. Uh, anything improper that may have happened is inadvertent. It's not intentional. And Tom is very committed to cleaning it up as a former law enforcement official. He wants to follow the law. And then they said, but we're also trying to make a 5 0 1 C four organization that can of course get involved in politics. So you wanna be involved in politics? You know, you've kind of been treading that thin line and you're like, yeah, but if we did, it totally didn't mean to. So, you know, it's not illegal.