by Chris White
A political action committee supporting President Donald Trump filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission saying former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s donation to the Democratic Party was illegal.
Bloomberg’s $18 million donation to the Democratic National Committee is an attempt to circumvent contribution limits and violate campaign finance laws, Great America PAC said in the March 26 complaint. The FEC is reviewing the complaint and will determine later if it will investigate.
The Daily Caller News Foundation received a copy of the complaint.
“Having failed to buy his party’s nomination, Bloomberg is doing the next best thing and buying the Democratic Party itself,” the group’s treasurer Dan Backer said Monday in a press statement.
He was responsible for writing the complaint.
He added: “If the Federal Election Commission allows Michael Bloomberg to get away with this illegal transfer, they’ll have sold off our democracy to a billionaire oligarch.”
The DNC must be held accountable, Baker noted.
The group’s complaint highlights Bloomberg’s decision to forgo donations and instead bankroll his own failed presidential run. The group said this unusual setup skirts the confines of the law distinguishing personal finances from campaign cash.
Federal rules allow individuals to donate $355,000 per year under normal conditions, but Bloomberg is taking advantage of a provision in campaign finance law allowing federal candidates to provide an unlimited amount of cash to party committees. The FEC lacks a quorum so the agency is unlikely to provide insight on the legality.
Neither Bloomberg nor the DNC responded to the DCNF’s request for comment, but the party’s communications director Xochitl Hinojosa addressed questions about the arrangement in a March 20 tweet.
“Bloomberg was in earnest running for POTUS & transferred money to his campaign ahead of trying to win on Super Tuesday,” she told her followers. “Didn’t win. He, like any other candidate, can transfer that $ to a party cmte.”
The billionaire former Republican made the hefty donation after previously promising to create an independent expenditure campaign ahead of the election that would have kept staff employed throughout November 2019. Many of his former employees must find other forms of work.
Bloomberg became a big money man during his short presidential run, dumping more than $234 million into TV, radio and digital ads in the Super Tuesday states. He suspended his campaign March 4 after a poor showing and tossed his unbridled support behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who throttled his Democratic opponents.
Biden fleshed out big wins in Minnesota, Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee, while Bloomberg managed to scrape together a win in American Samoa. Bloomberg spent roughly $500 million on ads leading up to Super Tuesday, plastering advertisements on Facebook and in the media ecosphere. The major digital push was all for naught, as it turns out.
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Chris White is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Michael Bloomberg” by Gage Skidmore CC2.0.
