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.
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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.”