Opposition research linking President Donald Trump to Russia ahead of the 2016 election — and reportedly funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party — may have broken campaign laws, The Hill reported.
Election law experts told the outlet candidates and their committees must report expenses accurately and in detail, and face civil or criminal penalties for failing to do so.
The issue arose after an explosive Washington Post report revealed the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign funded some of the opposition research by Fusion GPS — and then routed the money through a law firm.
Their campaign reports listed no payments to Fusion GPS and the expenses attributed to the law firm Perkins Coie are described as legal work, not opposition research, according to the Post.
The problem isn’t with opposition research — it’s with failing to accurately report the money spent on it, Federal Election Commission expert Jan Baran told The Hill.
“The issue is number one, did the campaigns pay for this service? And apparently, based on press reports, they did,” Baran said. “And number two, if they did, then it should have been accurately reported in some fashion on their FEC reports.”
The first legal complaints were filed Tuesday night accusing Clinton's campaign and the DNC of filing misleading campaign finance reports, The Hill reported.
"By failing to file accurate reports, the DNC and Hillary For America undermined the vital public information role that reporting is intended to serve," the nonprofit watchdog group Campaign Legal Center said in its complaint to the FEC, The Hill reported.
Baran told The Hill the law allows for civil penalties if an expenditure is misreported unintentionally; a criminal case could be brought if the misrepresentation is shown to be willful and knowing.
“Whether there was intentional false filing of the information would depend on all the facts,” he said. “Depends on who knew how the money was being spent, how the committee decided to report the purpose of particular bill.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.