Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

Trump’s Impeachment Trial Isn’t His Biggest Legal Risk

Can campaign-finance violations bring down a president?

January 22, 2020 at 10:30 AM UTC

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

This man could help end a presidency.
Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images North America

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President Donald Trump’s sprawling corruption may never be brought under lawful control, especially with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acting as inside man in Trump’s impeachment trial. But if Trump is ever to be punished for his many abuses of power, it just might be for his disregard of the nation’s ineffectual and much-maligned body of campaign-finance law.

True, it’s unlikely. Campaign-finance violations are often treated as clerical errors. The Federal Election Commission is a punchline in Washington, incapable of even voting on enforcement measures, since it lacks a quorum. (Both the White House and the Senate appear to like it that way.) Even when the commission did function, the most blatant disregard of campaign-finance law sometimes resulted in only weak fines administered many years late.