Watchdogs Call For Federal Probe Into Jeb Bush’s Blatant Campaign Finance Fraud

Two campaign finance watchdog groups are asking the Justice Department to look into Jeb Bush’s activities with the Right to Rise Super PAC he started. The groups–Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center–sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Wednesday and asked the DOJ to investigate whether Bush and his super PAC are “engaged in knowing and willful violations of the federal campaign finance laws” by coordinating with one another.
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Earlier this year Governor Jeb Bush launched a Super PAC to begin raising an unlimited amount of money for a “potential” run for the White House in 2016. He has traveled all over the country making appearances in early primary states, speaking to voters and raising money, all while maintaining that he is not an official candidate for the presidency. Everyone knows he is running for president– he knows it, we know it, his donors know it– but he can’t actually say it, because then his activity with his Super PAC would become illegal.
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You see, it is perfectly legal for private citizen Bush to hire high-ranking Republicans to work for his Super PAC and “potential” presidential campaign. It is perfectly legal for private citizen Bush to speak to the Super PAC and let them know what he wants his message to be. It is perfectly legal for private citizen Bush to raise money for his Super PAC and he has–a lot of it. Bush and his aides recently told donors that they are on the cusp of raising the most money ever raised by a presidential candidate at this point in an election cycle. David Beightol, a lobbyist and Bush supporter, recently told USA Today that the former governor will report “an extraordinary number [of money] no one has ever seen before.”
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By not declaring his candidacy, Bush is skating a fine legal line. All of those things just mentioned would be violations of campaign finance laws, because an official candidate is not allowed to coordinate with their Super PAC or accept any individual donation over $2,700 per election. So by not “officially declaring” he is essentially gaming the system; but the watchdog groups said what he is doing is not legal and instead, it is a clear violation of the law. That is why they are asking Attorney General Lynch to appoint an independent Special Counsel and investigate:
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