About Obama's campaign contribution fine.
I started hearing this as an excuse yesterday.
Trump cites 'massive' Obama campaign finance violation. Experts say Cohen's case is different.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-cites-massive-obama-campaign-finance-violation-experts-say-cohen-n902921
President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that the campaign finance violations his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to in federal court are equivalent to campaign finance violations committed by Barack Obama's first presidential campaign.
"If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign violation, but he had a different attorney general, and they viewed it a lot different," Trump said in an interview with Fox Business.
But there is no comparison, experts told NBC News. Cohen's admitted campaign finance law violations are indeed a crime, and they are not similar to the campaign finance violations made by Obama's 2008 campaign. Election law experts said that more minor violations are treated as regulatory or civil matters, while egregious and willful campaign finance violations are treated as criminal acts — no matter who the attorney general is.
Trump, in his Wednesday morning tweet, appeared to be referring to a $375,000 fine levied by the Federal Election Commission in early 2013 against Obama's 2008 presidential campaign over a slew of campaign finance violations, including missing filing deadlines for disclosing large donations during the final weeks of the campaign, reporting the wrong dates on certain contributions, and not returning donations that exceeded the campaign contribution maximum quickly enough.
Obama 2008 campaign fined $375,000
https://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obama-2008-campaign-fined-375000-085784
“At the time, the 2008 campaign was record breaking, with over 3 million grass-roots donors,” Obama campaign spokewoman Katie Hogan said. “The very few outstanding questions about the $750 million that was raised have now all been resolved.”
The major sticking point for the FEC appeared to be a series of missing 48-hour notices for nearly 1,300 contributions totaling more than $1.8 million — an issue that lawyers familiar with the commission’s work say the FEC takes seriously. The notices must be filed on contributions of $1,000 or more that are received within the 20-day window of Election Day.
For critics of the Obama campaign, the audit was a reminder of other reporting errors by the 2008 effort, which campaign officials said they tried to correct in real-time. But independent experts, including former FEC commissioner Michael Toner, said after the audit was released that the infractions were relatively minor, given the scope of the campaign.
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