How ‘illegal’ donations helped one NJ law firm make millions off taxpayer dollars

Austin Graham, legal counsel for D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, said it’s easier to prove the donors made illegal donations than it is to prove the politicians did anything illegal. “That kind of setup that you have with that is a wink and a nod-type of a deal where there’s some cocktail party, in some lobby of the statehouse where the orchestrator of the straw donor scheme says, hey have you noticed that all the employees from my company or law firm have contributed, I hope you’ll keep me in mind,” Graham said. “Unless you luck out and you have a solid evidentiary paper trail or some kind of smoking gun it can be difficult to establish the elected officials were complicit in the scheme.”

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