The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee for not properly disclosing the money they used to fund opposition research that led to a controversial dossier on President Trump's links to Russia.
The dossier included salacious but unverified claims about Russian intelligence actively working with Trump, including in the 2016 election. Many of the allegations have since been refuted, but the FBI used the dossier, prepared by former U.K. intelligence officer Christopher Steele, in efforts to acquire warrants for its investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged links to Russia's government.
The Clinton campaign and DNC paid the law firm Perkins Coie, which then hired Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm. The firm hired Steele to author the dossier.
A former lawyer for Clinton's 2016 campaign and the DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Political candidates and groups are required to publicly disclose their spending and provide a purpose for any expenditure that exceeds $200. The Clinton campaign was fined $8,000 and the DNC $105,000 for misreporting the dossier funding as "legal services" and "legal and compliance consulting" instead of opposition research, according to an FEC letter sent Tuesday.
Full story at Axios.com
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