Tuesday is the New York primary, and with 95 GOP delegates and 291 Democratic delegates on the line, this contest is shaping up to be a major one. And in the day before New Yorkers go to the polls, Bernie Sanders is accusing Hillary Clinton of violating campaign finance rules.
According to Vice News, the Sanders campaign issued a letter to the Democratic National Committee to question the amount of money Hillary Clinton’s campaign is taking from a joint fundraising committee called the Hillary Victory Fund. While individual donors can contribute up to $358,000 to such committees, the Clinton campaign can only directly use $2700 from each person donating. Sanders accuses Clinton of benefiting from more than that, though.
Specifically, the Sanders campaign accuses his opponent of reaping the rewards from $7.8 million in HVF direct mail initiatives and $8.6 million in online advertising, which violates the rules in this way:
The Sanders campaign claimed that, “at best, the joint committee’s spending on direct mail and online advertising appears to represent an impermissible in-kind contribution” — essentially a gift that must be reported as if the Clinton campaign itself spent the funds — “from the DNC and the participating state party committees.”
Sanders’ lawyer, Brad Deutsch, also says that HVF’s $2.6 million in operational costs were actually reimbursements to the Clinton campaign. Shortly after filing this letter with the DNC, the Sanders campaign publicized the letter in an email to supporters.
We’ll see if this makes any difference on Tuesday.
(via Vice News)