By The opinion
Feb 23, 2024, 10:34 PM EST
A bipartisan ethics panel in Wisconsin has recommended that felony charges be filed against one of Donald Trump’s fundraising arms in connection with an alleged scheme it says was intended to circumvent campaign finance laws to eliminate a powerful Republican lawmaker who has turned against Trump, according to The Washington Post.
The Wisconsin Ethics Commission this week found probable cause that the Save America committee, Trump’s main fundraising and political spending arm since he left the Presidency, a state lawmaker and several local Republican officials committed serious crimes and recommended that six district attorneys investigate and prosecute them, according to records released Friday.
The commission found that it is possible that the Save America committee and others involved, conspired to circumvent state donation limits during Steen’s failed attempt to unseat Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in the 2022 Republican primary.
The bipartisan commission’s referral comes as the former president and front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination faces a litany of legal problemsincluding 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions and recent civil judgments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
Under state law, individuals, candidate committees and PACs are prohibited from donating more than $1,000 to candidate committees running for state Assembly, the commission said. But party committees can make unlimited contributions to candidates.
The ethics panel said its investigation found that Steen’s campaign, three county party committees and others arranged to circumvent those limits and divert larger donations – sent through party committees – to the Steen campaign or its suppliers.
Save America donated $5,000 each to the three Republican county committees cited in the investigation, the commission said in public records released Friday, cited by CNN.
The panel said Save America denied allegations of wrongdoing in response to a complaint that prompted the commission’s investigation. A commission official told CNN on Friday that that document was not a publicly available record.
The commission also said that if local district attorneys choose not to initiate the process, it reserved the right to refer the matter to another district attorney or to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat.
In 2022, Trump endorsed Steen’s candidacy and harshly criticized Vos for not giving in to his pressure campaign to reverse his loss in Wisconsin to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
At the time, Vos told CNN affiliate WISN that Trump had asked him to decertify the 2020 election in the state and that he had refused, saying the Wisconsin Constitution prohibited him from doing so.
Ultimately, Steen lost to Vos by 260 votes in the 2022 primary election.
Wisconsin’s ethics commission voted to approve the referrals to local prosecutors on Tuesday but made the records public on Friday. References to those referrals were first reported by WISPOLITICS.
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