Page 21 - Contribution Limits News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

In the swamp, i joined katie in washington to figure out how we got to this point. >> it is hard to believe now, but there was a time not that long ago when it seemed like congress had a handle on this thing. in 2002, democratic senator russ fine gold got together with republican senator john mccain to introduce the first major bill addressing campaign finance abuses since the watergate era. >> well, there was this law in place, the federal elections law for 20 or 30 yores, but a loophole had been created that was undermining the contribution limits that had been created by the legislation. so...

Certainly get these donors thinking about how their money is being used i think when they see a number like $33,000 for a dinner at a steakhouse and how -- how effectively that money is being used, particularly when one fact that jumped out at me from the cnn reporting is that the rnc, which does have contribution limits on it out-raised the superpac which has no limits on what a donor can contribute. >> interesting point. >> problems with america first have just been building. in the 2018 election i had donors and republican operatives tell me they were frustrated because america first at the...

Things that are a problem are these contribution limits. if you can only get x amount, it means self-funders and very much people are able to fund their campaigns and it squeezes out people like him that doesn't come from money. >> that's right. the current regime, the status quo says increasingly that either you're a billionaire or celebrity or celebrity billionaire, donald trump. or on the other hand you are a grass roots pop lift who can raise a bunch bunch bunch of money from small dollar groups. left out is what we thought of for most of the past century as sort of the normal american pol...

>> well, we'll be watching. i want to bring in garrett haake on the hill and nbc's justice correspondent pete williams. pete, to you first. michael cohen is going to claim that the president and donald trump jr. were in fact part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws. if he does have checks that were signed by these two men, how far does that go into proving an illegal act and how big of an illegal act sk this considered to be? >> well, the illegal act has already been alleged. that's in the original court document against cohen and that is that these were illegal campaign cont...

Mcdougal. >> it's not a crime, george. paying 100 whatever thousand to one and the same to another is not a crime. >> charlie is here from the "new york times." you're the perfect one to talk to because you wrote this week how this compares to the other case. tell us how it's different. >> giuliani is perfect for telling us how hush money payments made by a politician could be a transaction that would be subject to contribution limits and disclosure requirements and all the other rules. john edwards paid his pregnant mistress in 2008 and the obama administration justice department moved forwar...