Washington Post Quotes Trevor Potter on Dark Money

There's understandable delight over the name of a company run by one of Rudolph W. Giuliani's Ukraine-connected buddies arrested last week for allegedly laundering money into President Trump's political efforts. It's called Fraud Guarantee. This will provide an excellent title for a book on the Trump era, deceitfulness being the one Trump trait we can rely on.

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Trevor Potter, the center's president, said in an interview that his group noticed a May 17, 2018, contribution of $325,000 from a limited liability corporation, Global Energy Producers (GEP) to America First Action, Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC. GEP seemed to have no real business purpose, and Potter and his colleagues suspected it was a shell company, which is what it turned out to be. The indictment charges that Parnas, Fruman and two other defendants used GEP to make political donations funded by an unidentified Russian businessman.

"It's a fluke they were caught," said Potter, a Republican and former chairman of the FEC. "The dark money system makes it almost impossible to find this stuff."

Potter argued that in Citizens United and related rulings, the Supreme Court made "a terrible mistake" in "minimizing the definition of corruption." He added: "The court fundamentally misunderstood how politics works and the dangers of corruption from unlimited and secret campaign spending. The chickens are coming home to roost in this indictment."

Trevor Potter is also a Member of the Political Law Group at Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered.

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