International Business Times: Trump Super PAC Took Illegal Donation From Private Prison Company

A leading private prison company illegally donated $225,000 to a political group supporting President Donald Trump during the 2016 election — and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has failed to address the violation, according to a new lawsuit filed by a government watchdog. The FEC’s failure to enforce the law opens the door for government contractors to use campaign cash to influence government policy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.

One of the donations occurred the day after the Obama administration began to phase out private prisons, a move Trump reversed shortly after moving into the Oval Office.  

The non-profit Campaign Legal Center (CLC) sued the FEC in federal court Wednesday for not responding to the organization’s 2016 complaint against GEO Group, a publicly traded private prison company worth $2.8 billion that operates 70 correctional facilities across the United States. 

...

Mark Gaber, one of the CLC attorneys that filed the lawsuit, told IBT that GEO Group’s donations were a “brazen” violation of campaign finance law.

“It appears that a large contribution directly led to a policy change,” Gaber told IBT. “These laws are intended to stop the public’s money from being spent on something that isn’t smart simply because of large campaign contributions.”

Read the full article