Yale Law School Professor Jed Rubenfeld posted a video in which the renowned constitutional scholar claims a campaign finance violation committed by Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 team bears similarities to the campaign finance violation at the center of former president Donald Trump‘s prosecution and conviction on business records falsification.
Citing the “public record” of the Federal Elections Commission findings, which he says were made available in 2022, Rubenfeld points out parallels between the “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels authorized by Donald Trump and money that the Clinton campaign reportedly paid to fund the so-called “Steele dossier,” opposition research which compiled allegedly compromising information about Trump when he was a candidate.
In what he calls a “remarkably similar offense,” both Clinton’s campaign and Trump marked the expenses, which were campaign expenses, as “legal” expenses, Rubenfeld says — a campaign finance violation.
Rubenfeld jumps from there to other similarities and notes that, despite what he calls a “surprisingly similar set of facts” between the two instances, no case was brought in New York against Clinton.
Hilary Clinton’s 2016 campaign may have committed a remarkably similar offense to the charge against Trump: labeling campaign expenses as legal expenses to influence the election. Facts were made public in 2022 by the FEC. Yet New York never prosecuted.
Could this prove… https://t.co/toXvPGdJcc pic.twitter.com/dFE3ovbK4t
— Jed Rubenfeld (@Jed_Rubenfeld) June 10, 2024
[NOTE: Rubenfeld has a podcast called Straight Down the Middle, which has jumped in popularity due to his status as a top constitutional law professor and his takes on the Trump trial.]
Toward the end of his video, Rubenfeld says, “now I don’t know all the facts of the Clinton campaign finance violation.”
Responding to Rubenfeld, University of Texas Law Professor Lee Kovarsky provided some facts that Rubenfeld didn’t get into — nipping his parallels in the bud and asking: “Are we really doing this?”
Kovarsky, who has successfully argued a death penalty case at the Supreme Court, lays out four reasons he says Rubenfeld’s assertions represent a false equivalence.
1) this is the campaign not Clinton
2) they admitted wrongdoing and paid a fine
3) no allegation of FECA [sic] violations being knowing and willful
4) no allegation of trying to cover up other crimes.
1) this is the campaign not Clinton;
2) they admitted wrongdoing and paid a fine;
3) no allegation of FECA violations being knowing and willful;
4) no allegation of trying to cover up other crimes.
Are we really doing this? https://t.co/k0qyRwZEAX
— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) June 11, 2024