All posts tagged "Ann Ravel"

The notion was once unthinkable.

Now, with Donald Trump tethered to a New York City courtroom as the first U.S. president to stand trial on criminal charges, it’s entirely conceivable: Trump could be running for president, or even serving as commander in chief, from behind bars.

Two overriding factors contribute to this bizarre reality....

The notion was once unthinkable.

More recently, purely theoretical.

Now, there’s a legitimate chance Donald Trump could be running for president, or even serving as commander in chief, from behind bars....

An unused government fund intended to pay for presidential elections grew by nearly $8.3 million in April — and the taxpayer-funded money will now sit untouched in a bureaucratic black hole for what could be years or even decades, according to a Raw Story analysis of U.S. Treasury records.

The Presidential Election Campaign Fund has now ballooned to $442.7 million as of April 30, Treasury records show.

A once-popular resource for White House aspirants, the fund hasn’t been used regularly in 15 years — but taxpayers continue checking a $3 check box that they encounter when filing their annual tax returns by the April deadline. Even though less than 4 percent of taxpayers checked the box in recent years, the fund continues to grow by tens of millions of dollars annually....

More than 30 federal political candidates and party committees have together surrendered at least $160,000 worth of donor dollars to the U.S. Marshals Service in recent weeks, according to a Raw Story analysis of federal campaign records.

It’s an all-but-unprecedented relinquishing of precious campaign cash to a government agency best known for hunting down suspected criminals, and even veteran election officials say they’ve never seen anything quite like it in U.S. politics.

But this isn’t any routine situation: Most of these “disgorgements” stem from contributions made by executives of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, including former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Raw Story’s analysis indicates. And the Department of Justice is urging campaigns to give the money up....