Trump 2020 campaign used a shell company for illegal coordination scheme with NRA

[pecosbob]

Shell games and blurred lines

The Trump campaign funneled money to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA by routing funds through a secretive LLC that appears to be little more than a shell company, an investigation by the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

While the Trump campaign stopped reporting payments to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA after the 2016 election cycle, Trump’s 2020 campaign has continued to deploy the same individuals working for the firms at the center of the controversy through payments to Harris Sikes Media LLC — a low-profile limited-liability company operating with no website or public-facing facade whatsoever.

Facing the illegal coordination allegations are National Media, Red Eagle Media Group and American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), closely tied consultancies that share staff, resources and adjacent storefronts in Alexandria, Va.

CRP’s analysis of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) records found that Trump campaign political ad disclosures on file with stations across the country have continued to include signatures and names of individuals working for National Media, despite no mention of National Media or its known affiliates on any FCC or Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Those individual ad buyers’ names have simultaneously continued to be included in ad documents for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and America First, but with the ad buyers’ affiliation listed as National Media or one of its affiliates.

As the election nears, this all-encompassing support of Trump may make it difficult to tell the difference between ads supporting Trump’s agenda as president and his agenda as a presidential candidate — effectively allowing a group run by a candidate’s former staffer to pay the same individual ad buyers paid by the campaign to make purchases at the same time where the only issue listed is supporting the candidate’s agenda.

While some of the issues presented by the Trump campaign’s approach to outside groups may seem novel, Trump is hardly the only candidate with blurred lines between his campaign and outside groups supporting him. And in a political environment where many candidates face allegations of flagrantly violating campaign coordination rules without consequence, it’s unlikely his campaign will be the last to adopt this approach.

read more at https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/12/trump-2020-campaign-coordination/

[unblock]

1. that sounds like evidence of fraudulent intent.

[SunSeeker]

2. K & R for exposure.

[empedocles]

3. Seems like an important link for 'conspiracy'.

[Initech]

4. The NRA is a hostile criminal organization. They can't be trusted.

[Achilleaze]

5. republicans & russians are running a criminal enterprise

with the intent of betraying America and American democracy.