Not a crime: Part VXII

Explain this to me like I am a six year old!

So to start with. Nondisclosure agreements are legal contracts that happen everyday.  Many job agreements come with nondisclosure agreements. Companies enter into nondisclosure agreements with their clients all the time. Some industries require them. Certainly celebrities enter into nondisclosure agreements all the time. Nearly all sexual harassment settlements come with nondisclosure agreements. 

In fact, our congress has spent 17 million dollars on harassment settlements, that all included some form of nondisclosure. 

They are not illegal. They are not a "scheme". They are legal contracts. The campaign election law cannot prevent a candidate for office to engage in perfectly legal actions. The only thing that they can do is regulate to what degree those expenditures can or cannot be paid for with campaign funds.

Make no mistake. 99.99% of the time, the Federal Election Commission is working to prevent candidates (who raise the sort of money that they will otherwise never see) on spending that money on things that benefit them. If not regulated, a candidate could run for office, raise millions of dollars, spend a limited amount on the campaign and then retire and live off his left overs.

So the FEC works to make sure that this money is spent properly and otherwise never converted for personal use. They error on the side of caution, meaning that pretty much anything that could serve a dual purpose becomes illegal to use campaign funds on.

It doesn't make the expenditure itself illegal (the FEC does not have that power). It just makes it illegal to use other people's money (designed to pay for campaign expenses) on anything that could be seen as personal. 

So let's go back to the legal action of a nondisclosure agreement. 

Again, the FEC cannot prevent the legal action. It can just regulate whether or not it can be paid for with other people's money. They have to decide whether or not the use of campaign funds to pay for a nondisclosure agreement is something that would benefit the candidate for office in his personal life. 

Whether  or not it helps the campaign is irrelevant. Lots of things serve a dual purpose of  both campaign and personal. Candidates are banned from using campaign funds on anything  that serves themselves  personally (even if it serves the campaign). If all a  candidate had to say in order to justify spending campaign funds on something, was argue that it helped their campaign, then the abuses could run rampant.

It's worth repeating this: The FEC first, second, and third concern is making sure that a candidate is not misusing the millions of dollars (more than many people will ever see) by using it on expenditures that help them personally.

When it  doubt, a candidate should "not" use campaign money. 

Now. Very specifically the FEC has ruled on this very subject in the past. Multiple people from the FEC have stepped up and echoed the same argument. A nondisclosure agreement is not an appropriate use of campaign funds. Most every nondisclosure agreement will help a candidate in his private live.

The FEC cannot demand that a nondisclosure agreement not be used during a campaign. They can simply demand that it be done with private money. Which, has been their official position on this subject since the John Edwards trial. 

 

So how can it be illegal for a candidate for President to follow the rulings of the FEC? 

It cannot be illegal. Any six year old paying attention could attest to that.