A case of prohibited candidate-PAC collusion so blatantly obvious and poorly covered up that you'd think we were talking about.....Hillary Clinton.
Let us try to navigate our way through this minefield of illegalities:
The Make America Great super PAC, formed to back Donald Trump's GOP presidential campaign, is shutting down, with the Republican operative who launched it saying he's pulling the plug to honor the co-front-runner's wishes. [emphasis added]
What "wishes"? Has Trump said anything about not wanting PACs to support his campaign? When did this happen?
"Mr. Trump has said he doesn't have a super PAC," Colorado operative Mike Ciletti, who formed the group, told Politico on Thursday. "So to honor his wishes, I'm shutting my organization down." [emphasis added]
That's not Trump saying he doesn't want Make America Great superPAC to shut down; it's Trump expressing ignorance of the fact that he's got at least one superPAC backing his campaign. And how does Trump not know this? How does Ciletti not know that Trump doesn't know this? Or did Cilleti simply assume that Trump would realize it by naming his superPAC with Trump's campaign slogan? After all, which candidate would anybody think the Make America Great superPAC was behind? Bernie Sanders?
Trump, a New York billionaire, has made refusing donations from other wealthy people a centerpiece of his campaign, and has never officially blessed Ciletti's super PAC or any of the other groups that say they're raising money for him.
But by the nature of the rules, he couldn't "officially bless" any superPAC's backing. That's the whole point.
And yet he had to muddy the waters anyway:
Trump did attend a fundraiser the group held in New York in July, speaking for ten to fifteen minutes at a private residence in Manhattan, where about two hundred people were in attendance.
The campaign finance Palmolive commercial - "Does he or doesn't he? Only his hairdresser knows for sure".
And as incompetent about this arrangement as The Donald has apparently been, Mr. Ciletti has had no difficulty keeping up:
The super PAC came under fire this week after the Washington Post reported that it obtained a September 1st email written by Ciletti to a GOP donor that suggested he was soliciting donations using contact information obtained from Rhona Graff, a top Trump aide. [emphasis added]
So the Trump campaign and Make America Great Again But We Have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING To Do With Donald Trump superPAC were illegally coordinating all along and the best Trump could do was profess ignorance of the superPAC's existence and now Mr. Ciletti is closing it down just in case.
Unfortunately I have to agree with the conclusion of several Republican operatives:
Republican strategists, though, told the New York Times that the news about the super PAC and the decision to shut it down will likely not affect his powerful campaign.
"Having a super PAC or engaging in any other particular political hypocrisy does not hurt Trump," Alex Castellanos, who advised Mitt Romney in 2008, commented. "[Some] GOP voters want him to do whatever it takes to blow up the establishment so his 'moral flexibility,' at this point, is an asset."
So let me get this straight: Donald Trump does not share Republican values and his mission is to destroy the Republican Party (if he can't take it over) on behalf of La Clinton Nostra, and a significant number of supposedly conservative voters are A-OK with that?
Boy, Mike Ciletta is a tower of rationality and fundraising expertise by comparison, isn't he?
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