NRA Coordinated Illegally With Donald Trump’s Campaign To Help Him Win, Major Lawsuit Alleges
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is having a very bad time.
After The Inquisitr reported yesterday that the New York Attorney General Lelitia James had launched an investigation into NRA’s financial dealings, the Giffords Law Cente is now suing the pro-gun group for allegedly violating campaign finance laws and coordinating illegally with the Trump campaign, reports Trofire.
According to a report by Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins, part of the complaint states that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was repeatedly warned about Trump campaign’s illegal dealings with the NRA, but no action was taken. As a result, the Giffords Law Center had no option but to sue the NRA.
The pro-gun group is accused of coordinating illegally with Republican campaigns over the last few election cycles, most notably with the Trump campaign. According to the lawsuit, the NRA made campaign donations to various candidates which exceeded the legal amount. In case of its donation to the Trump campaign, the lawsuit alleges that while the NRA could only make a donation of $5000 to the Trump campaign, the pro-gun group went beyond its way to give $25 million to Donald Trump. That means that the NRA exceeded the legal limit on contributions by almost 10,000 times.
“Plaintiff’s complaints demonstrate that the National Rifle Association (“NRA”) violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by using a complex network of shell corporations to unlawfully coordinate expenditures with the campaigns of at least seven candidates for federal office, thereby making millions of dollars of illegal, unreported, and excessive in-kind contributions, including up to $25 million in illegal contributions to now President Donald J. Trump,” the lawsuit alleged.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) was sued in federal court on Tuesday for failing to enforce campaign finance laws against the NRA.
“The illegal contributions to the Trump campaign alone are up to 9,259 times the limit set by Congress ' https://t.co/Bg5QwalpjS via @RawStory— Cruz Cerda III, Ph.D. (@cruzcerda3) April 27, 2019
The Giffords Law Centre maintained that it had raised the issue of the NRA making illegal campaign donations to Republican candidates in 2014, 2016, and 2018 to the FTC and FEC, but despite multiple complaints, nothing was ever done about it. The lack of action forced the Giffords Law Centre to file the lawsuit, which alleges that apart from Trump benefitting from the NRA, Republicans including Senator Thom Tillis, Tom Cotton, Cory Gardner, Ron Johnson, Josh Holly, and Montana’s Republican state auditor, Matt Rosendale, have all received illegal campaign donations from the pro-gun group.
The lawsuit comes at a difficult time for the NRA, which is struggling with a power vacuum at the top of its leadership. The group’s CEO, Wayne LaPierre, has accused Oliver North, the group’s former president, of trying to oust him, with similar charges flying in the other direction too.
