Right to Rise USA, the super PAC that supported Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign, has been fined $390,000 by the Federal Election Commission for accepting $1.3 million from an international investment holding company owned by Chinese nationals that counted Jeb's brother Neil as a board member. (It is illegal for foreign nationals to be involved in making donations to American political campaign committees.) The FEC has also fined the company, American Pacific International Capital, $550,000.
The penalties have not been made public but were reported by Mother Jonesbased on FEC filings. The report claims the combined fines were the largest levied in a single case in the nine years since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling opened the political fundraising floodgates – and also the biggest FEC fine in a case of foreign national participation.
"This illegal $1.3 million is a direct result of Citizens United," since before that 2010 ruling companies were restricted in what they could give to super PACs, said Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center, the nonpartisan watchdog that first made the FEC aware of the APIC contribution.
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