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Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on stage

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A fictional, fanciful sign depicts the results of voter suppression through the unfair, partisan manipulation of district lines (gerrymandering).

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Trump campaign fights a rival fundraiser, and watchdogs cry foul

Geoff West
By Geoff WestMay 09, 2019
Geoff West

Geoff West is a staff writer at The Fulcrum, where he covers voting and voting rights, civic education, civil discourse and disinformation. Email:geoffwest@thefulcrum.us

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The Trump re-election campaign warned donors not to get duped into giving to a friendly-seeming political organization – and in the process violated federal law, a pair of campaign finance watchdogs allege.

The campaign urged supporters this week to steer clear of solicitations from so-called "scam PACs," fundraising operations that raise money only to perpetuate their own existence and feather the nests of their operators. The warning came after revelations that the Presidential Coalition has raised $18.5 million since 2017 (with branding suggesting collaboration with Trump) but only spent 2 percent of its revenue on political activities. The rest went to support the super PAC's leader, David Bossie, a former Trump deputy campaign manager and still one of his most high-profile conservative allies. The details about the group's operation were reported by the Campaign Legal Center and Axios.

"Their actions show they are interested in filling their own pockets with money from innocent Americans paychecks," the Trump campaign said, without mentioning the Presidential Coalition by name. "We encourage the appropriate authorities to investigate all alleged scam groups for potential illegal activities."

The same warning also underscored that there are only four authorized fundraising committees and one "approved" super PAC, America First Action, raising money for the president's re-election.

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Mentioning America First Action, without specifying there's a $5,000 donation limit to super PACs, violated federal law because doing so was seemingly a solicitation for unlimited contributions, Campaign Legal Center and End Citizens United alleged in a complaint filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

"If candidates are not punished for working hand-in-hand with super PACs, campaigns will stretch the legal boundaries until there is no way to prevent the corruption of candidates beholden to big money," Adav Noti, CLC's chief of staff, said in a statement.

Whether such a technical violation will draw the attention of the FEC, which routinely deadlocks on far more egregious violations, is unclear at best.

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Bridging Hearts in a Divided America

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(Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Bridging Hearts in a Divided America

This story is part of the We the Peopleseries, elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this installment, we share the hopes and concerns of people as Donald Trump returns to the White House.

An Arctic blast is gripping the nation’s capital this Inauguration Day, which coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A rare occurrence since this federal holiday was instituted in 1983. Temperatures are in the single digits, and Donald J. Trump is taking the oath of office inside the Capitol Rotunda instead of being on the steps of the Capitol, making him less visible to his fans who traveled to Washington D.C. for this momentous occasion. What an emblematic scenario for such a unique political moment in history.

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Sixty-two years after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s pen touches paper in a Birmingham jail cell, I contemplate the walls that still divide us. Walls constructed in concrete to enclose Alabama jails, but in Silicon Valley, designed code, algorithms, and newsfeeds. King's legacy and prophetic words from that jail cell pierce our digital age with renewed urgency.

The words of that infamous letter burned with holy discontent – not just anger at injustice, but a more profound spiritual yearning for a beloved community. Witnessing our social fabric fray in digital spaces, I, too, feel that same holy discontent in my spirit. King wrote to white clergymen who called his methods "unwise and untimely." When I scroll through my social media feeds, I see modern versions of King's "white moderate" – those who prefer the absence of tension to the presence of truth. These are the people who click "like" on posts about racial harmony while scrolling past videos of police brutality. They share MLK quotes about dreams while sleeping through our contemporary nightmares.

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“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s familiar words, inscribed on his monument in Washington, D.C., now raise the question: Is that true?

A moral universe must, by its very definition, span both space and time. Yet where is the justice for the thousands upon thousands of innocent lives lost over the past year — whether from violence between Ukraine and Russia, or toward Israelis or Palestinians, or in West Darfur? Where is the justice for the hundreds of thousands of “disappeared” in Mexico, Syria, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the world? Where is the justice for the billions of people today increasingly bearing the brunt of climate change, suffering from the longstanding polluting practices of other communities or other countries? Is the “arc” bending the wrong way?

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