Trump fundraising e-mails overseas prompt complaints here and abroad

Sir Roger Gale was puzzled when a string of e-mails from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign landed in his inbox. As a Briton and a member of Parliament, Gale is barred by US law from giving Trump money, much less voting for him. “I’ve gotten rid of most of that rubbish,” Gale said. The e-mails to Gale were among a wave of fundraising pleas inexplicably sent by the Trump campaign in recent days to lawmakers in the United Kingdom, Iceland, Australia and elsewhere.

The solicitations prompted watchdog groups in Washington to file two separate complaints with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the Trump campaign was violating federal law by soliciting funds from foreign nationals. “The scale and scope of this does seem somewhat unprecedented,” said Brendan Fischer, associate counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, which joined Democracy 21 in one of the complaints.