Elon invested some $200 million into electing trump and it’s my understanding that while Citizens United says that super PACs can spend unlimited money supporting an issue, they’re not allowed to coordinate with the candidate lest they run afoul of campaign finance laws. If we were living in a world where things still mattered, would actions like appearing on stage with trump be a violation, or is there some nuance in the law (or subsequent case) which allows this? Given that more people aren’t screaming about that (like they did about him giving money to people who signed his pledge), I expect it’s something I don’t understand. Can anyone enlighten me?
Trump has gotten away with so much for so long that he has learned that the rules do not apply for him. There is little point in pointing out that he has broken this law or that law, because his hard core supporters do not care, and because compliant judges will let him get away with it.
Super PACs, officially known as “independent expenditure-only political action committees,” are unlike traditional PACs in that they may raise unlimited amounts from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups to spend on, for example, ads overtly advocating for or against political candidates."
They buy TV ads and so on independent of the candidates.
Well, let me ask what behaviors would be illegal? Would there have to be evidence of trump telling Musk that he needed help with, say, Pittsburg for there to be a violation?
One would imagine that point of coordination would be based on whether some activity, relative to a political party or candidate, essentially amounted a donation to the party or candidate by taking up the funding of what otherwise would have been funded by the candidate in normal operations.
You can’t be told, “we need to advertise in location X, but if you do it, we won’t need to, and we can save the money”. Or any other similar coordinated activity. Otherwise eventually the candidate just farms out all campaign activities to super PACs - and the whole idea of limiting donations becomes useless.
Proving coordination isn’t going to be exactly trivial. This is especially so if the super PAC goes in first. If they start advertising before the main campaign is really rolling, it is going to be hard to make a case that there is coordination. even if the candidate later realises that they don’t need to funnel as much money into some activity as they might otherwise have done.
Clearly, if late in a tight campaign it becomes clear where the hot spots are, and where activity needs to be focussed, it becomes essentially impossible to divide coordinated activity from supporting activity. There are too few possible useful things that are to be done, so the PAC is going to pick things to do, and the candidate is going to know what is left that they need to do, even if no conversations were had.
The smoking gun might be that both the PAC and candidate are singing from exactly the same song book. A PAC funding transmission of advertising that was created by the candidate’s team would not look good. Negative campaigns directed at the opposition candidate would be really hard to prove coordination of. The candidate might actually distance themselves from it with a pious “I would never stoop that low” despite cheering it along.
The chances of proving violation would seem slim unless those involved were really stupid. But politics and smart behaviour have tended to be strangers since the dawn of time.
Absent the existence of direct communication of instructions from the Candidate’s committee toward the PAC, I would imaging it would be impossible to prove the PAC is following the orders of the candiadate. The Committee can follow the PAC’s lead, the PAC can adopt the committee’s ads, or any sort of “coincidental” similarity and as long as there’s no proof they were instructed to do so, it’s not illegal (or at least, not prosecutable).
Whether a publicly expressed wish (“Gee, sure would be nie if ours advertising was running in the Pittsburgh market”) counts as coordination is up to a judge or jury I guess.
I read an essay many years ago, where the author discussed the idea that there were conspiracies to push certain social agendas. His point was, “It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a consensus.”
They don’t really need to coordinate a message when they all agree with one another. Elon wants tax cuts, and he knows Trump pushes tax cuts, so it’s no surprise that Elon might put out an ad mentioning Trump’s tax policy. Wash, rinse and repeat for anti-trans, anti-immigrant, anti-regulations, anti-welfare, pro-business, you name it.
In terms of gifts it normally falls on the giver to make sure they are complying. Musk’s gifts to Trump could be classified as just that a gift to him and not a campaign contribution. The onus would then be on Musk to make sure he reporting and paying the tax on the gift, not the responsibility of Trump.