Editorial: The Election Watchdog That Can’t Bark
And even in its denuded state, the F.E.C. could occasionally get the job done. This spring, it levied fines totaling $940,000 in a case involving a Chinese-owned corporation that had illegally funneled $1.3 million through an American subsidiary into a political action committee supporting Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential candidacy. The action not only held the involved parties accountable, it sent a message that “there are rules, and they will be enforced,” said Trevor Potter, a former F.E.C. chairman and the president of Campaign Legal Center, the watchdog group that filed the complaint.
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