--- title: FEC Hits Trump With Letter over Campaign Contributions description: A reported 1,100 donations were found to be problematic canonical: https://time.com/4579060/fec-donald-trump-campaign-contributions/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-21T20:11:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:16.997Z article:section: Politics og:title: FEC Hits Trump With Letter over Campaign Contributions og:description: $1.3 million worth of contributions may have been reported erroneously og:url: https://time.com/4579060/fec-donald-trump-campaign-contributions/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf22989427540159c/6988af42cd1bba1d077032bb/trump23.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3888 og:image:height: 2187 og:image:alt: President-elect Donald Trump listens to questions from the press as he exits the clubhouse after a day of meetings at Trump International Golf Club, in Bedminster Township, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: FEC Hits Trump With Letter over Campaign Contributions twitter:description: $1.3 million worth of contributions may have been reported erroneously twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf22989427540159c/6988af42cd1bba1d077032bb/trump23.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # FEC Dings Trump Campaign Over $1.3 Million in Donations > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=e1e312bf-4c04-4b84-a48c-373977a4f6ed&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Nov 21, 2016 8:11 PM UTC  President-elect Donald Trump listens to questions from the press as he exits the clubhouse after a day of meetings at Trump International Golf Club, in Bedminster Township, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016. President-elect Donald Trump listens to questions from the press as he exits the clubhouse after a day of meetings at Trump International Golf Club, in Bedminster Township, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016. Drew Angerer—Getty Images by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Nov 21, 2016 8:11 PM UTC The [Federal Election Commission](http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307063-fec-hits-trump-on-1100-campaign-errors-worth-13m) reportedly found the Donald Trump campaign accepted over 1,000 donations that violated some campaign finance laws. The FEC issued a letter to the campaign indicating that they had accepted about [1,100 problematic donations](http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/654/201611200300068654/201611200300068654.pdf), totaling about $1.3 million. Some of the donations came from groups that had not properly registered, according to a letter sent to the campaign, while others were from donors that exceeded donation limits. _The Hill_ newspaper [first reported on the letter](http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307063-fec-hits-trump-on-1100-campaign-errors-worth-13m) Monday. Trump is hardly the first politician who has received such a letter. Earlier in the 2016 election, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders received a series of letters indicating his small-dollar and online donors had exceeded contribution limits. One letter the [_Atlantic_](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/)magazine reported on in May indicated Sanders had received 1,500 faulty contributions. [_CNN_](http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/21/politics/fec-trump-violations/index.html) reports President Obama has received similar notices from the FEC. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4579060/fec-donald-trump-campaign-contributions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4579060/fec-donald-trump-campaign-contributions/"},"headline":"FEC Dings Trump Campaign Over $1.3 Million in Donations","datePublished":"2016-11-21T20:11:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:16.997Z","description":"A reported 1,100 donations were found to be problematic","url":"https://time.com/4579060/fec-donald-trump-campaign-contributions/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2016 Election","Campaign Finance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf22989427540159c/6988af42cd1bba1d077032bb/trump23.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf22989427540159c/6988af42cd1bba1d077032bb/trump23.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President-elect Donald Trump listens to questions from the press as he exits the clubhouse after a day of meetings at Trump International Golf Club, in Bedminster Township, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016.","caption":"President-elect Donald Trump listens to questions from the press as he exits the clubhouse after a day of meetings at Trump International Golf Club, in Bedminster Township, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016.","creditText":"Drew Angerer—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4579060/fec-donald-trump-campaign-contributions/","name":"FEC Dings Trump Campaign Over $1.3 Million in Donations"}}]}] ```