Okay—so we all know the Trump dossier was compiled by former MI6 operative the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded Christopher Steele. The lawyer for both entities, Marc Elias of Perkins Coie, hired the research firms Fusion GPS in April of 2016. GPS then retained Steele who used sources from within the Kremlin to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. Millions of dollars were sent to Perkins Coie. Opposition research is not illegal of course, but you cannot hire a law firm who then hires other folks to do this research without detailing the expenditures for these actors in Federal Election Commission reports. That’s the complaint that was lobbed against the Clinton camp by the Campaign Legal Center last week. Thus far, what we know is that the money the Clinton campaign gave Perkin Coie was listed as “legal services.” It looks like it went a bit beyond that. Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar and professor at the George Washington University School of Law, said there is a possibility that some in the Clinton camp could be facing criminal charges. That’s what he told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum last Thursday (via RCP) :

JONATHAN TURLEY: As you know, I’ve been very skeptical about the past Russian collusion claims as being a criminal matter, even though I supported the appointment of the special counsel after Comey was fired I’ve been cautioning and many others have that it really isn’t a crime to collude. In the same, it wouldn’t be a crime on the Trump side to receive information on the other side from a foreign national.

The allegations against the Clintons could potentially be criminal. It doesn’t mean that they are criminal. The $500,000 given to Bill Clinton might have been innocent. The timing might just have been horrible. But that would be a cognizable crime if a linkage was found.

In the same way, the allegation over the dossier does involve a potential violation of federal law. The Federal Election Commission Act requires campaigns to state a purpose for any money spent over about $200, to sort of have an item description for each of those amounts. There isn’t an item description for this law firm for the amount of money that is being alleged to have been given to this research firm.