Bradley A. Smith, my guru on all things campaign-finance related — a professor at Capital University Law School — emphasizes that the issues are most likely ones of “propriety, influence, and hypocrisy, not a violation of the law” here.
He tells NRO: “As Steele’s statement suggests, you could ask for an investigation intoquid pro quos, but that is really more of a straight bribery question than a campaign finance question, and the reality is that few prosecutors would want to pursue that without more. Federal officeholders can solicit funds for the party up to the legal limit, which for parties is now the $30,400 figure being used. There is also the question of soliciting from federal property — the old Al Gore problem from the 90s, you may recall — but again, I suspect that this White House is smart enough to avoid doing that. I doubt that there is enough here to trigger any type of FEC violation or even investigation.”