Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump could be a spammer.
Politicians in both the U.K. And Australia say they have received e-mails from the Trump campaign and signed by both the nominee and his son Donald Trump Jr., asking that they donate cash to his campaign. At least one e-mail was published online by Natalie McGarry, MP for Glasgow East, who received it on June 22. In the email, signed by Trump’s son, he noted that the Trump Campaign raised millions of dollars to fight “Crooked Hillary,” the term Trump uses for his presumptive opponent Hillary Clinton.
“If you haven’t given yet, I’m asking you to donate right now to help you the campaign at this critical time,” the message reads with a link to a Trump donate page. “Crooked Hillary has corrupt, deep-pocketed donors backing her. That’s why your involvement and financial support is so important.”
McGarry surmised that Trump might have purchased a list and blasted them out to anyone. But she responded, declining the request and saying that “it seems quite extraordinary that [Trump] would be asking foreign nationals for money; especially people who view his dangerous divisiveness with horror.”
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But McGarry was far from the last foreign politician to sound off on the alleged Trump e-mails. As CNET, which earlier reported on the e-mails, noted, Sir Roger Gale MP brought up Trump and “spam” in the House of Commons chamber on Tuesday.
“Members of Parliament are being bombarded with electronic communications from Team Trump on behalf of somebody called Donald Trump,” he said, according to a Points of Order transcript published on the House of Commons Hansard website. “I am all in favor of free speech, but I do not see why colleagues on either side of the House should be subjected to intemperate spam. Efforts to have them deleted have failed. Would you be kind enough to intercede with the Parliamentary Digital Service to see if they might be blocked?”
Trump has found himself in a bit of a quandary over money. Recent reports have said that Clinton’s war chest is substantially larger than that of Trump’s, which does not bode well in a general election that will require nationwide (and costly) advertising spending. Trump, who has said he’s self-funding his campaign, has received some donations from supporters. But since the beginning of last year, he has raised about 20% of what the Clinton campaign has raised from donations and SuperPACs.
Https://twitter.com/NatalieMcgarry/status/747559880723161090
Meanwhile, Trump is falling further behind in the polls and key battleground states.
But there is another issue with the alleged e-mails Trump’s campaign could be sending: they might run afoul of federal election statues. Indeed, a U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) spokesperson pointed Coins2Day to a brochure about the Federal Election Campaign Act, which “prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating, or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them.”
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The FEC spokesperson said that the office could not “comment on any specific candidate or situation for the potential for matters to come before the agency.”
That said, it’s unknown at this point whether the e-mails did indeed come from the Trump campaign—it’s not hard, after all, to spoof an e-mail address and run amok. The Trump campaign and Trump himself have also not sounded off on the issue. But at least some lawmakers have received e-mails from someone at least claiming to be from the Trump campaign.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
