The Federal Election Commission on Thursday announced its decision to drop an inquiry into whether Donald Trump violated campaign finance laws when his personal lawyer paid a porn actress $130,000 days before the 2016 election.
Why did TPM need to have Avenatti in the picture? It ruined my morning.
from other articles I’ve read, the FEC has been in disarray for quite a few years. It’s suppose to have six panelists but has had that in a long time. The last I read, it was down to three. Trump tried to nominate a few but to no avail.
Looks like Biden will have to step in before the FEC becomes ineffectual. By this latest decision, it seems to be headed in that direction.
The Republican commissioners who voted not to proceed with an investigation, Trey Trainor and Sean Cooksey, said that pursuing the case was “not the best use of agency resources,” arguing that Cohen had been punished.
Yeah, Cohen had been punished, but what about the motherf*cker who ordered the payment.
How ‘effective’. The FEC basically said ‘We put the low hanging fruit in jail so we’ll call it a win!’…
Every time I slam the FEC as a toothless enforcer of election laws people are quick to dispute just how damned easy it is to ignore or flout those laws and regulations.
Pols are going to do what they want with campaign money, whether it’s in raising it, spending it, or whatever else they want to do with it. And no one is going to rein them in or stop them. Get used to it.
I’m a little bit worried, with the current political environment we have, that the FEC is going to become an anachronism in the near term. A quaint, oh-look-at-that, kind of agency that will be entirely ineffectual.
Probably needs to be scrapped and rebuilt, but who’s got time for that?
Toothless agency.
“Going to”?
Both Train or and Cooksey need to be disbarred for this action. Letting the guy who ordered the crime off the hook because the underling who did it was punished dishonors the rule of law and furthers the perception that bigwigs are above the law.
Federal Elections Commission? We still have one of those?
Next you’ll be telling me that we still have a functioning FCC, too.
What in the actual fuck. They have DJT dead to rights and they’re just going to let him go Scott free??? 
i have no words…
Welp, that’s 0.001% of Former Guy’s legal culpability, wiped off the slate.
Only 99.999% to go.
This is kind of like a serial killer, charged with 28 murders, all committed in broad daylight with millions of witnesses, having a jaywalking ticket expunged.
Cohen has been mentioned…and, according to him, Trump will face some serious trouble ahead. Soon.
Unfortunately, this is exactly the sort of “victimless” crime for which Rich White Guys often skate.
Insurrection, treason, suborning murder–not so much.
" the rule of law is for chumps " nobody in particular
It’s thrown in with all the other stuff…and Trump’s legal liabilities are exponentially worse.
Did anyone expect anything other than this? Trump walks. He will again and again. Investigate as you will…he will walk. NY…do your thing. He will walk. He has walked for 70 plus years and will until his last breath.
That imminent danger for Trump has been out there for years…still dreaming of the day…
The FEC is broken, the CIA is broken, the FBI is broken, the OLC is broken, the DOJ is broken, the Supreme Court is broken, the…
Before it is ineffectual? I’d say it has arrived, with a 24 karat case of political skullduggery.