The Trump campaign funneled money to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA by routing funds through a secretive LLC that appears to be little more than a shell company, an investigation by the Center for Responsive Politics has found.
Those individual ad buyers’ names have simultaneously continued to be included in ad documents for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and America First, but with the ad buyers’ affiliation listed as National Media or one of its affiliates.
Common vendors are one of the factors federal regulators consider when determining if communications may constitute illegal coordination between a campaign and outside group.
The three ad buyers whose names have popped up the most on political ad records for all three groups are Ben Angle, Megan Burns and Jonathan Ferrell.
And so long as President Trump does not personally ask for more than $5,000, the groups are in the clear.
The America First groups have even gone as far as paying firms closely tied to key individuals employed by the campaign.
At almost every ad’s core, however, the issue is Trump, with FCC political ad disclosures even listing the issue in the ad as “pro-Trump agenda.”. »
