Republican campaign finance attorney Jan Baran observed that this is not a "run-of-the-mill" election prosecution. But: "We have a pretty rigorous campaign finance system." The $2,300 limit "seems a little quaint" if wealthy donors can funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to benefit a candidate outside the campaign.
Baran told me he is collecting the names of all the campaign-finance lawyers "who have said this is not illegal, and I'm going to seek from them an opinion letter the next time I get a high net-worth individual as a client who wants to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defraying the expenses of presidential candidates."