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De Blasio used state account he controls as campaign slush fund
[NYPOST] NY Fairness PAC’s purchases for Hizzoner’s campaign included:
  • $40,000 in digital media consulting services purchased on May 15, the day before de Blasio’s launch;

  • $8,562 for “launch weekend travel,” including $3,970.70 in plane tickets bought on United Airlines, American Airlines and JetBlue Airways on May 16 and May 17;

  • $4,200 for rent at The Yard, the Brooklyn coworking space where de Blasio’s campaign is headquartered, which was paid in June.
However, the campaign booked the PAC’s spending as a debt, not as a contribution — a legal maneuver that stunned lawyers, campaign finance experts and political consultants.

“It appears de Blasio’s state PAC spending is in excess of federal limits,” said Tyler Cole, a top lawyer at Issue One, a Washington, DC, watchdog group that focuses on campaign finance reform. “Federal candidates must run their campaigns out of federally regulated committees — the law is only meaningful if they abide by the federal limits.”

He added: “You can’t allow candidates to use state committees to do an end-run around the law.”

The maneuver of listing state PAC expenditures as a campaign debt for a federal campaign instead of a donation stunned one Democratic strategist.

The donation limit end-run was “among the most creative ways to circumvent election laws that I’ve ever seen,” the source said.

“If it’s not a violation of the letter of the law, it’s certainly a violation of the spirit of the law,” the person added.
Posted by: Fred 2019-07-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=546061