Two of former President Donald Trump’s children immediately took aim at the move by a grand jury in Manhattan to indict him Thursday — slamming ‘third-world prosecutorial misconduct’ and warning Republicans that they are the next targets of a weaponized political apparatus.

‘This is third-world prosecutorial misconduct. It is the opportunistic targeting of a political opponent in a campaign year,’ Eric Trump tweeted. 

Fox News learned Thursday afternoon that Trump has been indicted. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been investigating Trump for hush money payments made leading up to the 2016 presidential election — including a $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and a $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. It makes him the first former president to face criminal charges.

Republicans, including Trump, had dismissed the push for prosecution as politically motivated and had noted that not only is Trump a former president, he is seeking to retake the White House and has already announced a 2024 presidential bid. 

Donald Trump Jr., took aim at Bragg on Rumble in the immediate wake of the news.

‘This corrupt leftist. D.A. is indicting my father on claims that even the federal government has spent six years trying to put him in jail, even though they didn’t want to touch it and yet they go forward,’ he said.

Trump Jr. also called it ‘Communist-level s—.’ 

‘This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot blush,’ he said.

Trump Jr. also issued a warning for Republicans who he thinks aren’t taking the issue seriously and didn’t think it would affect them.

‘So let’s be very clear, because there were a couple of Republicans, people who have proven themselves to be RINOs while trying to wear the MAGA cap, let’s be clear for those people who said, ‘It’s not real, Trump’s making it up, It’s not a real issue for us.’ If you don’t think that the weaponization of the entire federal government against their political enemies, against the voters half of the country approximately as we’ve seen… If you don’t think that’s a problem, you don’t even belong in any position in government, let alone president,’ he said.

‘You know, I get you can have your sound bites and you can do your nonsense and pretend you’re doing great and hire your influencers. But if you don’t think that’s an issue, guess what? Just wait till they come for you. Because they will.’

‘We’re in a battle for our existence,’ he added.

Trump Jr. later took to Twitter, arguing, ‘This isn’t just the radical left weaponizing the government to target their political enemies, this is them weaponizing the government to interfere in the 2024 election to stop Trump. The only solution is to shove it down their throats and put him back in the White House!!!’

The indictment comes after weeks of speculation over whether Trump would be indicted. The former president himself had slammed ‘illegal leaks’ that suggested he was going to be arrested earlier this month.

On Thursday, a statement from his attorney said Trump ‘is a victim of a corrupt and distorted version of the American justice system and history. He will be vindicated.’

Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Marta Dhanis and Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted as part of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s years-long investigation, possibly for hush money payments. 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been investigating Trump for hush money payments made leading up to the 2016 presidential election. 

These include the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and the $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Hush money payments made to both McDougal and Daniels were revealed and reported by Fox News in 2018. Those payments had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission. 

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Stormy Daniels payment in 2019, even as Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

‘This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,’ a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Thursday. ‘Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.’

Trump reacted to his indictment, slamming Bragg for his ‘obsession’ with trying to ‘get Trump,’ while warning the move to charge a former president of the United States will ‘backfire.’

‘This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,’ Trump said in a statement. ‘From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, and even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the Radical Left Democrats- the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this Country- have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.’

‘The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable—indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,’ he said. ‘Never before in our Nation’s history has this been done.’ 

Trump said Democrats are guilty of ‘weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent.’ 

Trump attorney Alina Habba said Trump ‘is a victim of a corrupt and distorted version of the American justice system and history.’

‘He will be vindicated,’ she said. 

Bragg, when he took over as district attorney in January 2022, stopped pursuing charges against Trump and suspended the investigation ‘indefinitely,’ according to one of the top prosecutors who resigned from the office in protest. 

Prosecutors Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who had been leading the investigation under former DA Cyrus Vance, submitted their resignations after Bragg began raising doubts about pursuing a case against Trump.

Trump, earlier this month, cited reports, which were based on what he called ‘illegal leaks,’ that suggested he could be arrested on Tuesday, March 21. Trump posted about those reports on his TRUTH Social, leading the House Judiciary Committee to intervene, demanding Bragg testify before the panel. 

Republican lawmakers and allies of Trump blasted the investigation as a political prosecution and a ‘weaponization’ of the office of the district attorney. 

Bragg, last week, claimed that Trump ‘created a false expectation’ that his arrest was imminent, citing the former president’s TRUTH Social post, and slammed the committee for making an ‘unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.’

‘The Letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene,’ Bragg wrote in a letter to the committee. ‘Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.’

Last week, Robert Costello, a former legal advisor to Michael Cohen, testified before the grand jury last Monday that Cohen was a ‘serial liar,’ and testified that Trump did not know about the payments made by Cohen to Daniels.

Bragg then canceled grand jury proceedings related to the Trump probe on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Sources, at the time, told Fox News Digital that there was ‘major dissension’ within the district attorney’s office. One source claimed the district attorney is having trouble convincing the grand jury on potential charges due to the ‘weakness’ of the case.

Cohen, in 2018, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges, including tax evasion, lying to Congress, and campaign finance violations. Cohen pleaded guilty to arranging payments to Daniels and McDougal to prevent them from going public with alleged affairs with Trump, which Trump has repeatedly denied. 

Cohen has said Trump directed the payments—which the former president has denied for years. 

Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was later reimbursed by Trump’s company, which logged the payments as ‘legal expenses.’ McDougal received $150,000 through the publisher of the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer.

The Trump Organization ‘grossed up’ Cohen’s reimbursement for Daniels’ payment for ‘tax purposes,’ according to federal prosecutors who filed the 2018 criminal charges against Cohen for the payments. 

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing with regard to the payments made to Daniels and McDougal, and has repeatedly said the payments were ‘not a campaign violation,’ but rather a ‘simple private transaction.’ 

The payments to Daniels were first revealed in January 2018 in a Wall Street Journal report that said Cohen and Daniels’ lawyer negotiated a nondisclosure agreement to prevent her from publicly discussing the supposed sexual encounter with Trump.

At the time, though, Cohen, Trump, and even Stormy Daniels denied the arrangement.

In January 2018, Cohen said the alleged encounter between Daniels and Trump was a rumor that had circulated ‘since 2011.’

And in a letter dated Jan. 10, 2018, obtained and reviewed by Fox News, Daniels also denied the allegations.

‘I recently became aware that certain news outlets are alleging that I had a sexual and/or romantic affair with Donald Trump many, many, many years ago. I am stating with complete clarity that this is absolutely false,’ Daniels wrote. ‘My involvement with Donald Trump was limited to a few public appearances and nothing more.’

Daniels wrote in the letter that when she met Trump, he was ‘gracious, professional and a complete gentleman to me and EVERYONE in my presence.’

‘Rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false,’ the letter read. ‘If indeed I did have a relationship with Donald Trump, trust me, you wouldn’t be reading about it in the news, you would be reading about it in my book. But the fact of the matter is, these stories are not true.’

But in March 2018, Daniels changed her story. During an interview with CBS News’ ’60 Minutes,’ Daniels claimed she had a one-time, unprotected sexual encounter with Trump.

Meanwhile, as for the McDougal payment, David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., testified before the Manhattan grand jury Monday. It was at least the second time he has appeared before the panel as part of Bragg’s Trump investigation.

American Media Inc. is the parent company and publisher of National Enquirer. The company allegedly bought McDougal’s story from her, in which she claimed a past affair with then-candidate Donald Trump, for $150,000 in September 2016—weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

Federal prosecutors in SDNY decided in 2018 not to bring charges against American Media Inc. for spending $150,000 to buy, then conceal, McDougal’s story.

At the time, American Media Inc., ‘admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.’

The charges against the former president come after the Federal Election Commission, in 2021, dropped its case on the same issue— examining whether Trump violated election law with the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, after it ‘failed by a vote of 2-2 to…find reason to believe that Donald J. Trump knowingly and willfully violated’ federal election law.’ 

The investigation into Trump was opened in 2019 by then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. The probe was focused on possible bank, insurance and tax fraud. The case initially involved financial dealings of Trump’s Manhattan properties, including his flagship Fifth Avenue building, Trump Tower, and the valuation of his 213-acre estate Seven Springs in Westchester.

The investigation, last year, led to tax fraud charges against The Trump Organization, and its finance chief Allen Weisselberg.

Weisselberg was accused of collecting more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments and school tuition.

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty last year, was sentenced in January to five months in prison and five years of probation. His testimony last year helped convict the Trump Organization of tax fraud. 

Meanwhile, the charges against Trump come amid a separate, special counsel investigation into his alleged improper retention of classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago home. 

Last August, the FBI, in an unprecedented move, raided Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in connection with an investigation into classified records the former president allegedly took with him from the White House.

Attorney General Merrick Garland later appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to take over that investigation, and the Justice Department’s investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 — specifically whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, including the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.

President Biden is also currently under special counsel investigation for his alleged improper retention of classified records from the Obama administration. Former Vice President Pence also had classified records at his home—a matter under review by the Justice Department. 

The charges against Trump also come while New York Attorney General Letitia James continues her years-long civil investigation into the Trump Organization to find out whether Trump and his company improperly inflated the value of assets on financial statements in order to obtain loans and tax benefits. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state ‘will not assist’ in any extradition request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg amid what he called ‘questionable circumstances’ while slamming the charges against former President Donald Trump as ‘un-American’ and as a ‘weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.’ 

The former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

‘The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head,’ DeSantis tweeted Thursday. ‘It is un-American.’ 

‘The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct,’ he continued. ‘Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent.’ 

DeSantis added: ‘Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.’ 

Trump’s primary residence is his property at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. 

Trump was indicted as part of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s years-long investigation, possibly for hush money payments. 

Bragg has been investigating Trump for hush money payments made leading up to the 2016 presidential election. 

These include the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and the $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Hush money payments made to both McDougal and Daniels were revealed and reported by Fox News in 2018. Those payments had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). 

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019, even as former Trump attorney Michael Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal. The FEC also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

Former President Donald Trump was indicted Thursday by a Manhattan grand jury, following a years-long investigation from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and liberal prosecutor Alvin Bragg. 

News broke Thursday evening that a Manhattan grand jury investigating a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 election campaign voted to indict Trump. Bragg is also investigating the $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Fox News Digital previously reported. 

Amid the focus on the Trump indictment, Fox News Digital examined some instances where Bragg has been accused of being soft on crime.

The top Manhattan prosecutor came into office as a reform-minded DA, and has repeatedly been accused of letting abusive individuals and murderers off the hook, including when the family of a slain New York man said he betrayed them by not prosecuting a nurse who was charged with fatally stabbing her estranged husband.

‘It is our position that you have prematurely substituted your version of events for the fact-finding functions of the jury and neither honored your promise to the court or to my family to seek even a measure of accountability,’ the brother of slain man James Murray, Steven Murray, wrote to Bragg in December.

James Murray was fatally stabbed by estranged wife Tracy McCarter in 2020, who said she killed her husband in self-defense and that he was an abusive alcoholic. McCarter was championed by domestic violence advocates, according to previous coverage from the New York Post, and Bragg received a donation from advocacy group Color of Change, which advocated for her release, during his run as DA.

He tweeted in support of McCarter’s release in the run-up to his election and ultimately secured his bid to drop murder charges against the woman, which the family of the slain man said was ‘100%’ motivated by the donation from Color of Change.

Similar cases have unfolded since his inauguration, including him getting ridiculed for cutting a sweetheart deal with a career criminal who went on to punch a woman randomly; his slap on the wrist for a man who viciously assaulted a 55-year-old nurse; and jailing, yet ultimately releasing, the bodega owner who killed an aggressive ex-convict who attacked him on murder charges.

In 2022, during Bragg’s first year as Manhattan’s top prosecutor, he downgraded more than half of felony cases to misdemeanors. He campaigned on criminal justice reform and sent a ‘Day One’ memo to staff upon taking office to downgrade certain felonies, such as armed robberies of commercial businesses. The move came at a time when crimes were up 27.6% in New York City, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Bragg declined to prosecute 35% more felony cases than in 2019.

Trump has gone after Bragg for his financial support from liberal billionaire donors George Soros, who donated $1 million to the Color of Change political action committee, which funneled money to Bragg, the New York Post previously reported.

‘​​Bragg is a (Soros) Racist in Reverse, who is taking his orders from D.C. I beat them TWICE, doing much better the second time, and despite their DISINFORMATION campaign, they don’t want to run against ‘TRUMP’ or my GREAT RECORD!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social this month. 

Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center in Virginia, previously told the outlet that Soros’ donations are a ‘shock and awe’ political maneuver.

‘George Soros has quietly orchestrated the dark money political equivalent of ‘shock and awe’ on local attorney races through the country, shattering records, flipping races and essentially making a mockery of our entire campaign finance system,’Anderson told the New York Post.

Bragg was elected in 2021 and became the first Black American to lead the powerful office. But since assuming office, he has also been hit with criticisms from other New York leaders, including NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who said she was ‘very concerned’ with his ‘Day One’ memo.

‘I am making my concerns known to the Manhattan District Attorney and hope to have frank and productive discussions to try and reach more common ground,’ Sewell wrote in a message to officers last year. ‘As police commissioner, your safety is my paramount concern. That is one reason I am seeking to have conversations with the district attorney to seek a better balance between officer safety, public safety and reform.’

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung has previously blasted the investigation into Trump as a ‘witch hunt’ and accused Bragg of being in the pocket of President Joe Biden and ‘radical Democrats.’

‘President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most Radical Left Democrats are making that clear,’ Cheung wrote in a statement.

The White House is silent on the unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.

The former president of the United States, and the leading Republican presidential nominee for 2024, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

The White House declined to comment when asked for reaction to the unprecedented charges against Trump.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been investigating Trump for hush money payments made leading up to the 2016 presidential election. 

These include the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and the $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Hush money payments made to both McDougal and Daniels were revealed and reported by Fox News in 2018. Those payments had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission. 

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Stormy Daniels payment in 2019, even as Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

‘This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,’ a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Thursday. ‘Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.’

Trump reacted to his indictment, slamming Bragg for his ‘obsession’ with trying to ‘get Trump,’ while warning the move to charge a former president of the United States will ‘backfire’ on President Biden.

‘This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,’ Trump said in a statement. ‘From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, and even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the Radical Left Democrats- the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this Country- have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.’

Meanwhile, the charges against Trump come amid a separate, special counsel investigation into his alleged improper retention of classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago home. 

Last August, the FBI, in an unprecedented move, raided Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in connection with an investigation into classified records the former president allegedly took with him from the White House.

Attorney General Merrick Garland later appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to take over that investigation, and the Justice Department’s investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 — specifically whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, including the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.

President Biden is also currently under special counsel investigation for his alleged improper retention of classified records from the Obama administration. Former Vice President Pence also had classified records at his home—a matter under review by the Justice Department. 

The Manhattan grand jury indictment Thursday night of former President Donald Trump is sparking new scrutiny of the George Soros-supported district attorney who led the investigation into Trump’s alleged violations of state campaign finance laws.

The former president is expected to surrender to District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office early next week, following his indictment stemming from Bragg’s investigation into Trump’s alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. 

Fox News Digital previously reported that in May 2021, financier George Soros pushed $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, which turned around and spent big, backing Bragg’s candidacy. 

Soros’ son, Jonathan Soros, and Jonathan’s wife, Jennifer Allan Soros, also donated directly to Bragg’s campaign, according to New York campaign finance records reviewed by Fox News Digital.

On April 26, 2021, Jonathan Soros sent a $10,000 check to the now-district attorney’s coffers, state filings show. Three days later, on April 29, Jennifer Allan Soros added a $10,000 contribution to the campaign. While other individuals provided more direct cash to his committee, the couple were among the field of some of its biggest donors. 

The contributions were also uncommon for the pair, as they generally do not get financially involved with district attorney races, though they have donated to other New York political campaigns and issue groups. Jonathan Soros did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment on the Bragg donations.

George Soros, on the other hand, has targeted numerous prosecutor races with millions of dollars in recent years.

Soros’ district attorney operation usually involves his longtime treasurer, Whitney Tymas, establishing ‘pop-up’ political action committees in states where he targets the races. Once set up, the financier injects money into the PACs, which tend to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars backing his preferred candidates. The PACs typically dissolve after the elections. 

In Bragg’s case, this did not happen. Instead, Soros donated $1 million in May 2021 to the Color of Change PAC, which in the following weeks spent cash backing Bragg’s candidacy. The timing of the money makes it likely it aided the efforts.

Soros’ spokesperson, Michael Vachon, did not respond to a Fox News Digital’s previous request for comment.

Soros has provided financial backing to dozens of far-left district attorney candidates, which he views as a significant component of overhauling the criminal justice system. Controversial DAs such as Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Kim Foxx in Chicago, Kim Gardner in St. Louis, and George Gascón in Los Angeles have all received massive boosts from his money.

Bragg’s potential charges, which were still unknown as of Thursday evening, stem from an alleged $130,000 hush money payment then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office for the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019, even as Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

Fox News Digital’s Joe Silverstein and Brooke Singman contributed reporting.

New Jersey’s Democrat-led Legislature passed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s campaign finance laws on Thursday, sending the measure to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.

The measure, called the Elections Transparency Act — a name opponents say it falls far short of — makes a host of changes, including increasing spending and contribution limits, overhauling pay-to-play laws and shortening how long the state’s election watchdog commission can investigate campaign finance violations.

The bill’s sponsors claim that the changes are overdue and much needed, and also contain real transparency provisions, such as a requirement that groups like super political action committees and other organizations that contribute report their contributions to the state watchdog and a decrease in the threshold at which reporting is necessary from $10,000 to $7,500.

Among the changes the proposed bill would make are increasing spending limits in a primary for governor to $7.3 million from $2.2 million, and to $15.6 million from $5 million in the general election, as well as boosting the limit on individual contributions to candidates and parties from $2,600 to $5,200. It also retroactively shortens the statute of limitations for the state’s campaign finance watchdog — the Election Law Enforcement Commission — to investigate violations from 10 years to two years, temporarily permits the governor to make appointments to the commission without Senate approval and ends individual towns’ pay-to-play laws.

The bill would also remove a current prohibition against public contractors donating to state and party committees and permit state and committee party committees to maintain a ‘housekeeping’ account to pay for non-political expenses.

On the Assembly floor on Thursday, Democratic Majority Leader Louis Greenwald and Republican Assembly member Brian Bergen clashed on the floor over the measure.

Bergen, an opponent of the legislation, questioned why the measure increased caps on contributions. Greenwald, the bill’s sponsor, answered that the aim of the legislation was requiring more disclosure, since so-called dark money groups don’t disclose their donors.

‘It’s not the point of the bill, but it’s part of the bill,’ Bergen said. ‘It allows people to buy influence.’

Greenwald responded that the legislation would check corruption because it requires disclosure.

‘It’s not the amount of money that you can contribute that leads to corruption,’ Greenwald said.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari was the only member to speak in favor of the bill last week when the measure passed in that chamber, with bipartisan votes both for and against.

The Democrat said the bill would create a far better system than what’s currently in place. He pointed to a campaign finance violation from 2016 that just recently resulted in a five-figure fine, as the reason for retroactively eliminating the 10-year statute of limitations.

‘Where is the deterrence in that fine? Why should we allow them to go after people after they’re out of office?’ Scutari said. ‘How would you like to get a traffic ticket two years after you went through (a red light)?’

Opponents of the bill said it falls short of its name.

Democratic state Sen. Nia Gill said the measure expands the influence of money in politics. Republican state Sen. Anthony Bucco said the measure hampers the commission’s ability to prosecute violations of campaign finance laws.

‘This bill has become simply a bad bill with a nice name,’ Bucco said.

Among the worst loopholes contained in the bill, according to critics, is the expansion of pay-to-play laws — rules aimed at limiting what companies that hold public contracts can contribute to political campaigns.

The bill would allow recipients of state government contracts to contribute to candidates for governor if they’re awarded through the ‘fair and open process.’ The bill says that the public entity awarding the contract determines what amounts to ‘fair and open.’

‘New Jerseyans would be left asking if future state government contracts would be awarded to the lowest qualified bidder, or to the next Governor’s biggest donors,’ said Philp Hensley, the League of Women Voters of New Jersey’s democracy policy analyst.

The bill was first introduced last summer, but it didn’t begin moving through the Legislature until earlier this year. It coincides with a controversy involving the watchdog commission’s executive director and Murphy. The director, Jeffrey Brindle, filed a lawsuit recently in which he alleges that Murphy’s staff called him to a meeting last November and asked him to resign. They cited ‘anti-gay’ emails they said Brindle sent. He’s denied the emails show bias and said he was being coerced to resign.

An earlier draft of the legislation would have allowed Murphy to unilaterally fire Brindle, but the latest version posted on the Legislature’s website would temporarily permit Murphy to name the commission’s four commissioners, who’d oversee the executive director.

Murphy’s spokesperson declined to comment.

If approved, the prospective law’s campaign contribution and expenditure limits wouldn’t make New Jersey much of an outlier compared to other states. Some have unlimited levels, while others have far lower limits compared to New Jersey’s prospective changes.