How campaign finance violations often escalate into dramatic scandals

New York Mayor Eric Adams was Charges of bribery and fraud following an intensifying federal investigation into his administration.

Among other things, federal prosecutors claimed of their Indictment from September 2024 that Adams received campaign contributions from the Turkish government for his 2021 mayoral campaign and attempted to cover up these illegal foreign contributions.

Adams is the primary mayor of New York to be charged with against the law, but he’s hardly the one politician come into conflict with Rules that govern how political campaigns can raise and spend funds within the US elections.

And as we our latest podcast “Scandalized” The discovery of campaign finance law violations is commonly just the primary chapter of a much wilder story.

Why campaign finance law is significant

The In the USA, federal regulations apply that regulate how political campaigns can raise and spend money in U.S. elections. For example, they limit how much money individuals and groups can donate to candidates' campaigns. Federal laws also restrict the usage of campaign funds and require disclosure of all campaign spending to be sure that candidates cannot spend campaign money on whatever they need.

By law, candidates can use campaign contributions for expenses directly related to their campaign. Allowable expenses include promoting, travel, and costs related to fundraising, comparable to renting a venue or buying food for guests. Candidates can use surplus campaign funds after the election to repay outstanding loans, or they will donate them to other campaigns or party organizations.

However, campaign funds might not be spent at any time on purely personal expensesCandidates cannot use their campaign funds to pay their mortgage or rent or to purchase clothing or household goods.

Disgraced former U.S. Representative George Santos, a Republican from New York, has been a very blatant violator of non-public spending rules.

Santos pleaded guilty in August 2024 on nearly two dozen cases of violations of campaign finance law – a hodgepodge of criminal offenses. According to the New York Timeshe diverted “tens of thousands of dollars of campaign funds to personal expenses, including luxury goods, Atlantic City casinos, rent payments, and a website best known for its explicit sexual content.”

Santos, who served for nearly a yr until his expulsion from Congress in December 2023, is a primary example of how the complicated U.S. campaign finance system can bring to light other, much more scandalous actions by politicians.

A window to major scandals

A key element of campaign finance law is disclosure. Candidates must publicly report Donations over $200and document, for instance, all the things they spend the donations on during and after their campaigns.

For former U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter Jr., a Republican from California, failure to comply with disclosure laws during his 2016 election campaign led to a Federal investigationThe Justice Department found that Hunter used campaign contributions to finance Family vacations, video game purchases and hotel rooms for several extramarital affairs. In 2020, he was sentenced to eleven months in prison.

Former President Donald Trump's longtime lawyer and agent, Michael Cohen, also concealed a donation to his boss's 2016 presidential campaign. The real scandal, nonetheless, was what the cash was actually used for: He paid porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to an illegal donation.

Many, if not most, violations of campaign finance laws are minor. Small errors comparable to filing a donations report late or miscategorizing an expenditure often cause little greater than small wonderful.

However, when technical campaign finance violations bring a significant scandal to light, they attract attention. Voters and the media grow to be aware of the indisputable fact that not only are the donations not going where they’re purported to, but in lots of cases the cash has been used to subsidize candidates' personal misconduct and corruption.

High-profile political scandals undermine public trust

Almost every current survey shows that Americans' trust in the federal government is at an all-time low. In the Nineteen Sixties Three quarters of voters said They trusted that the federal government would do the appropriate thing generally or all the time. Today, only a fifth of those surveyed consider this.

Inappropriate behavior by politicians, including candidates who squander donations from their supporters, could contribute to this lack of trust. have real fears about money in politicsFor example, 84 percent of Americans fear that wealthy lobbyists and special interest groups have undue influence on elections, and 80 percent say that campaign contributions have a corrupting effect on politicians.

Even when candidates should not technically breaking the law, they often use campaign funds in ways in which donors are unaware of or should not aware of.

In the 2024 election, for instance political campaigns, each major parties And private fundraising institutions On each side of the aisle, hundreds of thousands of campaign funds have been spent on legal fees for candidates who’ve faced trial on charges of great criminal misconduct.

The beneficiaries include Trump, against whom was the charge brought for Suspicion of misuse of classified informationand Democratic U.S. Senator from New Jersey, Robert Mendendez, who recently convicted due to corruption allegations on the federal level.

The bottom line is that donations intended to assist a candidate win don’t all the time reach the places where the donors actually intended or believed they’d go.

Nevertheless, the political climate within the United States is so polarized that these scandals are unlikely to dramatically affect voters' decision-making. Political scientists sometimes confer with today's voters as “calcified“ of their partisan identity, meaning that they’re so loyal to their very own party that campaign finance violations and other scandals are unlikely to vary their views.

Research also shows that voters are increasingly motivated less by their support or affection for their very own party and more by their fear and dislike of the opposite party. As a result, partisan voters are willing to accept or forgive scandalous behavior of their very own side within the interest of defeating the opposition. Hardcore partisans are also adept at finding ways to justify or rationalize these violations.

With Record amounts As campaign finance scandals proceed to spawn in 2024, the approaching months are sure to bring more scandals, but our research suggests they’ll not have a significant impact on the polls.