to several campaign finance lawyers, and they were divided on the legality of Burgum’s scheme:
Paul S. Ryan, a longtime campaign finance and ethics lawyer, said the plan raised concerns that Burgum was effectively acting as a straw donor — a person who makes the contribution in the name of another, which is illegal. “It sounds like this candidate is using these individuals as straw donors to make it look like he has a bunch of campaign donors when in fact, he’s coaxing these contributions by reimbursing donors out there money that really, at the end of the day, is the candidate’s money,” Ryan said.
But that’s a problem for the Burgum campaign. While there’s a risk you won’t actually get the gift card, you’re not going to go to jail for sending an obscure presidential candidate $1.On the one hand, yes, letting a billionaire almost literally buy his way onto the Republican debate stage doesn’t seem great. On the other hand, Doug Burgum is far from the biggest threat facing our political system at the moment. So you just have to ask yourself what you’re willing to do for a cool $19.