Politics

Trump Campaign's Plagiarism Sacrificial Lamb Opens Up Questions Of Election Law Violations

Co-mingling of resources between the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign could be a no-no.

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Melania Trump (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Melania Trump (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

By now, you’ve probably heard that Meredith McIver, identified as an in-house staff writer for the Trump Organization, has fallen on the proverbial sword and copped to adding in the lines to Melania Trump’s Monday night RNC speech that were cribbed from Michelle Obama’s 2008 DNC speech. The statement is on Trump Organization stationary and says that McIver offered to resign over her mistake, but notes that Donald wouldn’t let her.

But there is something else interesting about McIver’s statement.

Some people are now questioning McIver’s role — she explicitly says her position is with Trump Organization, not with the campaign, and the Huffington Post notes there is no record of McIver working for the campaign in documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. But co-mingling of resources between the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign could be a no-no:

“Given the identification of McIver as an ‘in-house staff writer’ at the Trump Organization in both the statement and letter, and her resignation from the Trump Organization ― printed on Trump Organization stationary ― and not the campaign, it appears that corporate resources may have been used to prepare the speech,” said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the campaign finance watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “That would make the speech an illegal in-kind corporate contribution from the Trump Organization to the campaign.”

Of course, McIver could have been volunteering, but as HuffPo notes, her offer to resign makes that suspect.

Legal experts are also commenting on the unique relationship between Trump Organization and the campaign. It isn’t something many have ever seen before:

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Larry Noble, counsel at the Campaign Legal Center and former counsel for the FEC, agreed that McIvers’ role “raises a lot of red flags.”
…
“It raises the question of whether anyone who works for the corporation also works for the campaign,” Noble said. The Trump campaign’s use of Trump Organization resources is “on a scale we’ve never seen before.”

Sounds like McIver’s attempt to take responsibility for the plagiarism PR nightmare is opening up the Pandora’s box of FEC violations.

Melania Trump Speech Appears To Be An Illegal Campaign Contribution [Huffington Post]

Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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