President Trump’s reelection campaign violated the law by routing $170 million through conduit firms headed by associates, including former campaign manager Brad Parscale, a nonpartisan ethics watchdog charged in a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.
The Campaign Legal Center said in an 81-page filing that Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committee masked $170 million in spending to vendors and Trump family members and associates by using outside “pass-through” companies headed by Parscale and Trump campaign lawyers.
The complaint alleges that more than $170 million was “laundered” in this way, including payments to campaign senior advisers Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump. Both are paid through Parscale Strategy and therefore do not appear as direct payees on the Trump campaign finance reports, according to reporting from the New York Times cited in the document.
“This illegal conduit scheme leaves voters in the dark about the entities working for the Trump campaign, the nature of their services, and the full amount they are paid,” said the CLC’s Director of Federal Reform Brendan Fischer. “We don’t know all of what is being hidden by this scheme, but we do know that it violates the law.”
The campaign has paid millions of dollars to Parscale Strategy and American Made Media Consultants, which is run by a Parscale lieutenant. In June alone, the Trump campaign paid AMMC more than $42 million.
“This scheme flies in the face of transparency requirements mandated by federal law, and it leaves voters and donors in the dark about where the campaign’s funds are actually going,” said CLC President Trevor Potter. “This secrecy could also disguise other campaign finance violations, but we don’t know because the campaign isn’t disclosing these routed payments.”
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement that “the campaign complies with all campaign finance laws and FEC regulations.”
“AMMC is a campaign vendor responsible for arranging and executing media buys and related services at fair market value,” Murtaugh said. “AMMC 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. The campaign reports all payments to AMMC as required by the FEC.”
