A lawyer for Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, told reporters in Iowa today that his trip -- on the Trump corporate jet -- had been financed by a business supporter and booster of Trump's, Stewart Rahr.
The trip poses a serious campaign finance issue for Trump, experts say: If the trip was -- as Cohen explicitly suggested -- aimed at testing the waters for a presidential bid, it falls under a strict set of fundraising requirements that appear already to have been violated.
Specifically, Campaign Legal Center's Paul Ryan told POLITICO, "testing the waters" efforts are subject to a ban on corporate and union donations and a contribution limit of $2,500.
"Federal law is really clear here: if you are speidng money determining whether to run that falls under the caterogy of 'testing the waters' and you have to use federally permissible funds," Ryan said, a point he argued in a recent white paper.
Trump trip financing in question
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