Some Virginia lawmakers are hoping to reform presidential campaign laws after the election.
Donald Trump is the first president in the modern era to not release his tax returns, so we don’t know how much he’s worth or how much he pays in taxes.
But what we do know, according to Federal Election Commission filings, is that Trump family businesses have been paid more than eight million dollars from the Trump campaign this election cycle. That doesn’t sit well with many Democrats, like Northern Virginia’s Gerry Connolly.
“I think it’s unseemly whenever a candidate actually uses the finances of a campaign to essentially subsidize or underwrite various members of his family – period.”
Connolly says the Trump’s making money off a White House bid is telling.
“It’s very typical of Donald Trump – every opportunity is to be exploited for your personal advantage no matter how it looks. Now if he’s as rich as he says he is $8.2 million is chump change, but that didn’t stop him from self-aggrandizing nonetheless.”
But Trump’s surrogates disagree. Pennsylvania Republican Tom Marino was an early supporter of Trump and says Trump has done nothing wrong.
“I’m going to get political now – you want to talk about people making money on the backs of their positions? Let’s talk about the Clintons.”
Reports have also come out that the Secret Service has had to pay a Trump airline close to two million dollars just to fly on the same plane as Trump. But another Trump surrogate, Congressman Lou Barletta, says that’s nothing compared to the access to the State Department donors to the Clinton Foundation were given.
“Always the attack is let’s try to find something that he did to try to take the focus off what she’s done.”
Then there are the tax returns. Even some Republicans, like Virginia Republican Scott Rigell, argue Trump needs to release them.
“His continued insistence that he’s not going to release his tax returns because he’s in an audit situation – that’s really smoke and mirrors with the American people. I think that’s a deliberate deception. That’s just a little cheap talking point. And he thinks he can just get away with that because the American people will think there’s some sort of prohibition. There is none.”
Rigell is a successful businessman and millionaire. He’s been opposed to Trump from the beginning, and he argues Trump is setting a dangerous precedent for presidential candidates. Rigell also thinks Trump has something to hide.
“There’s such a precedent in this country for presidential candidates releasing their financial information that I’m personally convinced, and there is a degree of speculation in this, but it’s informed speculation, that there are matters of substance in those tax returns that if released would persuade many not to vote for him.”
There’s chatter on Capitol Hill about changing campaign requirement laws after the election. Virginia Democrat Don Beyer says he hopes a bipartisan group can take it up after the dust has settled on the election – “when nobody is running.”