Trump campaign allegedly took ‘excessive’ contributions by the nickel and dime
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign received a nastygram from the Federal Election Commission again — this time, in the form of a 243-page letter flagging suspected illegal contributions.
Trump’s campaign appears to have accepted dozens of donations that exceed federal contribution limits — $3,300 per person to a candidate per election — from supporters who often made miniscule but repeated donations in a bizarre, seemingly random, manner.
Take Gail D. Lopez, listed in public documents as a retiree from Lacombe, La., who made 1,450 separate contributions to Trump’s campaign in less than 17 months.
Of those, 116 were for one penny.
Lopez made 228 additional contributions for less than a nickel.
And 1,000 contributions were for less than a dollar.
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Her total giving was $4,272, some of which the Trump campaign listed as having refunded. But even with the refunds, she nickel and dimed herself well over the legal limit without the Trump campaign adequately stopping her, according to the FEC.
Contributions that exceed federal limits are supposed to be refunded by a campaign — or redesignated by the donor from, say, a primary election to a general election.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s request for comment. The FEC, a independent federal regulatory agency with the power to issue fines for campaign finance-related violations, gave Trump's campaign until June 17 to respond to its inquiry.
Donor Karen Anjoorian, listed in FEC records as being retired and from Suffolk, Va., made 12 contributions for nine cents, including two such contributions on the same day.
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She made numerous other contributions for odd amounts — 18 cents, 23 cents, 32 cents.
Her total giving of $3,523.49 went over the federal limit.The FEC lists more than 100 people whose contributions to Donald J. Trump For President 2024, Inc., violated election law.
While Trump’s campaign has experienced habitual problems keeping track of donors who give too much, many large-scale federal campaigns, particularly presidential campaigns — Republican and Democratic alike — have also struggled with such accounting from time to time.
Trump, meanwhile, frequently boasts about his wealth.
But the former president, who is facing 88 felony counts across four criminal cases against him, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in civil judgments against him, is not self-funding his 2024 presidential campaign in any meaningful way.