No. The DoJ would be badly mistaken pursuing campaign contribution violations.
Basically everything you said here is wrong. Where did you get this information from? Conservative media? Either way you got some really, really bad information on the law and Trump’s violations of it.
He’s in a very, very bad place here, likely on the hook for multiple felonies.
1. A candidate has no limit on the amount he/she can contribute to their own campaign.
This is not relevant to the charge. The charge is that Trump willfully did not declare his contributions to his campaign, which is a felony.
2. FEC rules do not consider such payments (hush money to mistresses) to be campaign contributions.
This is false and has no basis in any FEC rule. What the FEC cares about is if the purpose of the payment was principally to influence the election. In this case we have a sworn statement that this payment was for the principal purpose of influencing the election, so from the evidence available it was a campaign contribution.
EDIT: let’s remember that Michael Cohen already pleaded guilty to felony campaign finance violations for these hush money payments. If they weren’t contributions he would have had no reason to plead guilty.
3. The DoJ tried that with John Edwards even though FEC rules were against them. The DoJ lost in court and Edwards was acquitted. And in the Edwards case other people who were subject to campaign limits paid off the mistress for John Edwards. Precedent is not in the DoJ's favor (at all).
This has nothing to do with campaign contribution limits. Also, Edwards was not acquitted, it was a hung jury and the principal witnesses were unable to testify due to one being dead and the other being almost dead.
Edwards having a hung jury won’t save Trump.
4. IIRC the Obama had campaign contributions violations of a much larger amount and it was, as usual, treated as a civil mater with a fine applying. (I think it was the largest in history).
The amount has nothing to do with this. What differentiates a civil violation from a criminal violation is intent to avoid campaign finance law.
There is zero evidence any of Obama’s finance violations were willful while we have Trump on tape talking about how to conceal the payments along with statements of the principals involved. That is a felony.
5. Finally, it would not be the candidate who was in trouble. It would be the campaign treasurer who is responsible for filings with the FEC.
Fern
This is incorrect. Trump signed the statements under the penalty of perjury and he is the one on tape and in sworn testimony directing the criminal violations of campaign finance law. The treasurer is not on the hook for this, Trump is.
Seriously Fern, whenever you got this info from is either totally ignorant of the issues or was deliberately misleading you. Never go there again if you care about being informed.
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