Elon Musk was worth almost $200 billion at the beginning of 2024, the year he went all in on aligning himself with Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Since then, Musk has briefly become the world’s first trillionaire – and the biggest known political donor in the United States.
Musk’s ballooning wealth over the last two years– a gain of around $700 billion– has coincided with a political transformation, from previously a Democratic funder to one of the GOP’s most enthusiastic and generous backers. Now his future is increasingly intertwined with those new alliances– from federal contracts with the Trump administration to defenses against Democrat-led congressional investigations.
Musk is on track to be the election’s single biggest known political donor with almost half a billion dollars in spending ahead of the midterms, according to MS NOW’s tally of top individual donors at the federal level since 2010 based on campaign disclosures to the Federal Election Commission. He beat his own record this year after he contributed some $290 million to help Trump and Republicans win in 2024.
While there is not a clear direct link between Musk’s campaign contributions and the rapid growth in his fortune, his businesses’ contracts with the federal government have expanded over the past two years.
This cycle, Musk is pumping tons of cash into political organizations backing Republican candidates. So far he’s given at least $446 million in political donations to his own super PAC, America PAC, and other political groups and campaigns, according to FEC disclosures.
His single biggest fiscal priority this cycle so far has been the competitive Texas Senate contest between GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. Musk has poured well over $200 million into the race through various super PACs supporting Paxton.
He’s been a prolific commenter on X, the social media platform he owns, attacking Democrats and warning that he will retaliate if lawmakers investigate him after the midterms. “Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets,” Musk wrote on X. “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
His enormous spending has itself become a central focus for Talarico and his supporters. “This Senate seat doesn’t belong to Elon Musk. This Senate seat belongs to you. It belongs to the people of Texas,” Talarico said at a rally on Tuesday. “We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.”
It’s an about face for Musk, who just last year indicated he’d rein in his vast political spending. “I think I’ve done enough,” he said in May 2025 after a fierce public blowback to his role in the early months of Trump’s second term.
Since that period, which marked the end of his official role in policymaking, public opinion about Musk has failed to improve. The majority of Americans, 65%, say they dislike Musk, according to YouGov’s popularity tracker, as of early October.
Musk’s enormous political contributions this year will represent less than one-tenth of one percent of his net worth.
The tech mogul is nearly a trillionaire. He officially crossed the trillionaire threshold earlier this year, but that valuation is tied to regular fluctuations in the stock market. His net worth was estimated to be nearly $920 billion, as of Thursday, according to data compiled by Forbes. The Bloomberg Billionaire Index, meanwhile, put his wealth at $913 billion.
The figure largely reflects his company stakes, including in his aerospace venture SpaceX and automaker Tesla, which both trade publicly. Both businesses have received billions of dollars in federal funds over the last two decades. Neither company responded to a request for comment on Thursday. Musk’s super PAC did not immediately offer a comment for this story and MS NOW was unable to reach Musk directly by email.
By December 2024, Musk’s net worth doubled in the wake of Trump’s election victory and his forthcoming return to office for a second term. Musk, who was the world’s richest billionaire at the end of that year, was frequently seen spending time with Trump’s inner circle during the transition period, including at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago golf club and traveling on his private plane.
Between 2024 and 2026, SpaceX’s valuation rose sharply as a result of the expansion of Musk’s AI business, known as SpaceXSI, along with the growth of his satellite internet-company, Starlink.
Some of his key firms are closely linked with the federal government, and a backlash among Democrats could weigh on parts of his empire in the long run. Under Trump, federal agencies have signed multiple contracts for use of Musk’s artificial-intelligence software, Grok, including the Pentagon and the General Services Administration.
An online chatbot recently launched by the White House to disseminate federal information also utilizes Grok, along with Google’s AI software. Musk recently changed the name of his artificial intelligence business from xAI to SpaceXSI following Trump’s rebranding of AI as “super intelligence.” Earlier this month, he told a user on X– the social-media platform he owns– that he would reflect Trump’s preferred moniker in the company’s name. If the House comes under Democratic control, as polls suggest, Musk is likely to face investigations into his business dealings and his four-month stint in the Trump administration.
After financially backing Trump’s presidential campaign, Musk was appointed to serve as a senior advisor and a co-leader of the government’s cost-cutting initiative, which he labeled the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE made a series of controversial moves including the reduction of more than 300,000 federal workers, shuttering agencies created by Congress and suddenly slashing funding to aid programs that fed poor people around the world.
Democratic lawmakers serving on the House Judiciary Committee accused the administration of targeting staff and leadership at agencies that have pursued investigations into Musk’s businesses, pointing to personnel firings including inspector generals, according to a Feb. 2025 fact sheet. The White House said Musk did not play a direct role in firing decisions and Musk dismissed conflict of interest concerns.
Musk’s powerful role drew scrutiny given his numerous contracts with government entities. Trump notably attributed his departure in May 2025 to his criticism of a Republican-passed tax and spending bill that ended electrical-vehicle tax credits for Americans last year earlier than expected. Musk denied that the EV-credits attributed to his decision to leave Washington. He instead cited the statutory requirements for special government employees.
The president threatened to review Musk’s federal contracts amid their falling out, causing Musk’s personal wealth to nosedive by $34 billion that day, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, the second-largest loss in the tracker’s history.
The two men made amends sometime in late 2025. Musk made a sharp political shift in 2024 after previously supporting mostly Democrats, who he referred to as “the kindness party” which notably largely supported the electric-vehicle boom that Musk championed. Prior to 2024, he donated modestly to Democratic candidates, but at a much smaller scale than his million-dollar donations to Republican groups in recent years.
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Driven in part by the suicide of Virginia Giuffre, survivors of sexual misconduct have coalesced into a formidable force that has transformed the country’s midterm elections.
Their voices helped push the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine to drop out and a sitting Republican congressman to announce that he would not seek re-election, even though both men denied wrongdoing. One congressional candidate even came forward to say she had been raped while tending to her campaign signs.
Survivors of sexual violence have channeled their pain into marches, candidate endorsements and ads targeting Republican lawmakers over the Epstein files. On Thursday afternoon, a protester at a Trump rally in South Carolina was thrown out while yelling Giuffre’s name.
All that work generated enough momentum that survivors have started to look toward what they want from a new Congress. That list includes ensuring the release of the complete Epstein files and accountability for people implicated in them, as well as for the authorities who handled the documents. But it goes beyond Epstein to include legal protections for victims of sexual violence in general.
Those months of momentum took a jolt last week with the release of a TV ad from the campaign of Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in the Ohio gubernatorial race. The spot features Democratic nominee Amy Acton’s estranged mother saying the candidate, who has spoken publicly about having been sexually assaulted as a child, is a liar.
The ad has been broadly condemned, including by fellow Republicans, with the notable exceptions of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Epstein survivor Dani Bensky told MS NOW she watched Trump and Vance defend Ramaswamy and thought, “I can’t believe this is reality.”
Bensky said she believes that the Ramaswamy ad and the lack of investigations stemming from the Epstein files, among other developments, make the case that America is becoming desensitized to sexual violence and institutional failure to do anything about it.
Dani Bensky during a press conference to announce new legislation to establish financial relief for survivors of sexual violence on Capitol Hill on Sept. 15, 2026.Annabelle Gordon / Reuters
Still, Bensky has hope that the midterms carry the possibility of large-scale legislative change. While she and other survivors who spoke to MS NOW stressed that combating sexual violence should be a nonpartisan issue, many said November is a chance to usher in a new majority that better supports survivors.
“I can’t speak to survivors of sexual violence across the board, but I do know when we walk into Republican offices there is already generally a stigma, with the exception of a few,” said Bensky, who named Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rep. James Comer of Kentucky as two of the more receptive GOP officials.
In a new report, House Judiciary Democrats describe Trump’s connections to Epstein, call for a special counsel to further investigate Epstein’s network, and urge Congress to “use its legislative and oversight powers to pursue justice for survivors and bring an end to the Trump Administration’s shameful, bureaucratic, and political cover-up.”
MS NOW spoke to a range of survivors about the legislative agenda they would pursue with more allies in Congress and statehouses across the country, and a handful of themes emerged.
The rest of the Epstein files
3.5 million pages, 3,437 bound volumes of the Epstein files are displayed during a pop-up exhibit on May 11, 2026, in New York City.Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images
In compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice has released more than 3 million pages of documents related to investigations into the late financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. But Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who co-sponsored that legislation in the House, is not easing up before the remainder of the 6 million pages the DOJ named as “potentially responsive” are released.
“We still don’t have the FBI 302s — interviews with survivors that their attorneys have said are critical,” Khanna told MS NOW. “Meanwhile, the DOJ has excessively redacted some records while exposing survivors’ names and sensitive information in others.”
Khanna is shepherding the Epstein Files Transparency Act II through Congress. Among other things, it would bolster efforts by state attorneys general, members of Congress and victims of Epstein and his co-conspirators to challenge the Department of Justice in court for failing to disclose materials required by the initial Epstein Files Transparency Act.
“The Department complied with the EFTA, making public the nearly 3 million investigatory documents which were responsive to the Act,” a DOJ spokesperson said. “The Department also freely offered members of Congress the opportunity to view the files unredacted.”
Khanna believes the bill will eventually pass in both chambers. It has already secured the 218 signatures needed to be brought to the House floor for a vote after the midterms.
More broadly, he sees the treatment of Epstein victims as setting an example for how the United States addresses sexual violence nationally.
“There is a direct line between the alleged gang rape in Cornell and the elite impunity of the Epstein class,” Khanna said, referring to the case that has roiled the Ivy League university and brought calls for New York state to update its sexual assault laws. “The fact that for decades we allowed rich and powerful people to get away with the biggest sex trafficking scandal in American history sent a message in this country that we don’t take sexual violence or sexual assault with the seriousness that we should.”
Epstein-related prosecutions
To date, the Department of Justice has not charged anyone, politician or otherwise, who had known associations with Epstein, aside from his longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Asked about additional investigations, a department spokesperson said, “While we cannot talk about the existence of any ongoing investigations, the Trump administration is the only administration to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and make any of these documents available to the public.”
Survivors and lawmakers point to the idea that if the Justice Department were to charge even one of the wealthy, well-connected men implicated in the Epstein files, more prosecutions would follow.
“The Epstein case has always been about the power structure and the power versus the vulnerable,” Bensky said, adding: “I think it’s that question of ‘Do we have the same structure in place for America’s most powerful people as we do for the average citizen?’ We can’t let them operate with impunity under another set of rules.”
Todd Blanche’s handling of the files
Bensky, left, speaks during a news conference following a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche on July 15, 2026, in Washington, D.C.Daniel Heuer / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bensky told MS NOW that she and other Epstein survivors had endured not one but two abuses: the abuse perpetrated by Epstein and his co-conspirators, and the mishandling of the Epstein files by now-Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Department of Justice.
In the millions of Epstein documents Congress compelled it to release, the DOJ redacted information belonging to accused predators but revealed some victims’ personal information, such as phone, Social Security and bank account numbers. The department also published dozens of nude photos of women, some of whom might have been teenagers.
The back and forth survivors have had with the government to get their information removed from the internet has made their trauma “a wound that can’t close,” Bensky said.
Pam Bondi was attorney general when the files were released, but in a May 2026 interview with the House Oversight Committee after she stepped down, Bondi said she delegated oversight of the files to Blanche, her deputy.
In a social media post at the time, Bondi disputed lawmakers’ characterization of her comments, while not contradicting her statements that Blanche had overseen the files’ release. She said she had praised his handling “of this Herculean task. I said his ethics are beyond reproach and that he is an incredible Attorney General.”
Survivors say Blanche’s and the DOJ’s handling of the redaction process prioritized the privacy and safety of predators over victims, prompting widespread suspicion that those involved are protecting people in the files. They note that Blanche only met with Epstein survivors when it became clear that it was a condition for getting Senate approval for his confirmation.
Additionally, just days after Blanche interviewed Maxwell in prison, she was transferred to a minimum-security facility. (Blanche told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the decision was made by the Bureau of Prisons, but that “every decision that they make lands on my desk to the extent that it needs to.”)
A DOJ spokesperson rejected assertions from Democrats that Blanche’s interview with Maxwell was performative, pointing to sections of the transcript indicating that he pressed her for her recollections of wrongdoing by Epstein and others.
Regardless, in their recent report, House Judiciary Democrats wrote that the Department of Justice’s conduct constituted a “cover-up” that needs to be investigated by a special counsel.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has said Democrats are prepared to subpoena Blanche, among other administration officials, on “Day 1” if they gain control of Congress.
Lawsuit protections
In her final months in Congress, Rep. Nancy Mace has introduced the Speak Your Truth Act, which would force abusers who lose defamation suits against victims to pay their legal fees. The law aims to discourage the use of costly defamation suits as a tactic to silence survivors.
The Speak Your Truth Act has become law in five states with broad bipartisan support and has been introduced in at least 15 others. Victoria Burke, a lawyer who wrote the legislation after a man she alleges drugged and assaulted her sued her for defamation, said that even with support of lawmakers behind them, many Epstein victims were afraid to name their abusers out of fear of financially devastating lawsuits.
Burke told MS NOW that the Cornell case had prompted New York lawmakers to reach out to her about the legislation.
Burke also said she sought out Mace because of the South Carolina Republican’s leadership in fighting for Epstein victims, and because the congresswoman herself was sued for defamation after calling four men “predators” in a speech on the House floor in which she described her own sexual assault. (Three of the four were criminally charged this month.)
“Women are put in financial ruin simply for doing the right thing,” Mace told MS NOW. “And this is just one small tool in a much larger toolbox of things that survivors and victims of abuse can use when they’re trying to fight back and to stay alive from their abusers.”
Giuffre’s legacy
Amanda Roberts, sister-in-law of Virginia Giuffre, holds up a photo of Giuffre outside the Capitol on Nov. 18, 2025, during a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act.Heather Diehl / Getty Images
When Dana DiFilippo learned that Virginia Giuffre had taken her own life last year, she felt as if a grim promise had been made to her and all other survivors of sexual violence: that their struggles were more likely to end in suicide than in justice.
DiFilippo, a co-founder of the Survivors’ Solidarity March, is among the countless survivors who tracked Giuffre’s fight for justice as the most well-known of Epstein’s victims.
DiFilippo says she spent 19 years “in the dark” internalizing the sexual abuse that happened to her, and by the time she was ready to act on it, she found she was too late: Colorado’s statute of limitations for prosecuting sexual assault is 20 years, but only for assaults that occurred after the Legislature updated that window beginning in 2022.
That is why survivors are pushing for the passage of Virginia’s Law, which would eliminate the statute of limitations for lawsuits over sexual abuse.
The federal version of the bill was introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., in February.
Housing security
Sexual violence can happen to anyone, but circumstances like housing insecurity or substance abuse can put people at greater risk. That is why Democratic congressional candidate Christina Hines of Michigan supports expanding the Fair Housing for Survivors Act.
In 2021, Hines became chief of the special victims unit in the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office, where, she told MS NOW, she witnessed the effects of human trafficking and abuse. But she also identified gateways that could be stopped with the right policies.
Survivors may stay in dangerous situations when they do not have a place to relocate, and they often face housing discrimination if they have spent time in a domestic violence shelter.
“One of the things that we realized is, until we get more housing and shelter options for trafficking survivors, they were going to keep falling through the cracks,” Hines said.
Last March, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nicole Malliotakis introduced the Fair Housing for Survivors Act, which would make survivors of domestic abuse a protected class under the Fair Housing Act. This would ensure that they cannot be evicted or denied housing on the basis of being survivors.
Hines would support this legislation in Congress and advocate for the revitalization of the Crime Victims Fund, which Congress created by passing the Victims of Crime Act in 1984 to support victim compensation.
“Survivors see themselves in the cover-up, the corruption, the failure of the system to act in a way that protects them or gets them justice,” Hines told MS NOW. “That is true regardless of whether you’re an Epstein survivor or a survivor right here in Macomb County.”
Yet even in her own district, Hines said, not all survivors are certain that a Democratic majority in Congress will bring change. They still remember when Joe Biden was president and did not prioritize investigating the Epstein files.
Beyond the House Judiciary Committee’s report and House Oversight Democrats hammering on the Epstein files, party leadership has not been publicly prioritizing the issue, leaning instead into matters such as affordability. Top Democrats have released a laundry list of issues they would like to tackle in the first 100 days after their victory in Congress, and missing from that is any mention of the Epstein files.
Mace is a MAGA disciple who fell out of favor with Trump over his objection to releasing the Epstein files, and is leaving Congress after losing the Republican primary for governor. She is blistering on her own party’s inaction on protections for survivors, but she doesn’t have faith Democrats will be any better.
“Both parties are just mouthpieces to survivors just to win an election,” she said, calling that “ devastating” and ripping Ramaswamy for the attack ad against Acton.
“I’m not a Democrat. I’m a die-hard f—-ing raging conservative, and you have Republicans playing politics with pedophilia,” she said. “It’s disgusting what’s going on right now. It’s just disgusting.”
Mace does not know if anyone will take up the various bills she has introduced on behalf of survivors after she leaves the House. The federal version of Virginia’s Law hasn’t gone anywhere since Schumer and Leger Fernández introduced it. Ditto for the expansion of the Fair Housing Act to benefit survivors.
To be sure, survivors are not taking for granted the notion that a Democratic Congress would move such measures forward.
But they have recognized that they might have some say about that.
“Survivors are powerful,” said Elisa Batista, the campaign director of UltraViolet, a gender equity nonprofit that worked with Giuffre’s brothers to organize a vigil for her.
“We have the numbers. Please vote.”
Bensky wears a butterfly necklace, representing hope, during a field hearing by the Democrats as part of their investigation into Epstein on May 12, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla.Marco Bello / Reuters
Fallon Gallagher contributed to this report.
__ If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, help is available. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at1-800-656-4673, text “HOPE” to 64673, or access online assistance atrainn.org/get-help.
Dani Bensky during a press conference to announce new legislation to establish financial relief for survivors of sexual violence on Capitol Hill on Sept. 15, 2026.
3.5 million pages, 3,437 bound volumes of the Epstein files are displayed during a pop-up exhibit on May 11, 2026, in New York City.
Bensky, left, speaks during a news conference following a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche on July 15, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
Amanda Roberts, sister-in-law of Virginia Giuffre, holds up a photo of Giuffre outside the Capitol on Nov. 18, 2025, during a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Bensky wears a butterfly necklace, representing hope, during a field hearing by the Democrats as part of their investigation into Epstein on May 12, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
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For the past several weeks, Republicans worried about the outcome of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race have focused on one aspect of the contest above all others: the fact that there are two Dan Sullivans on the ballot.
After months of arguments, a state judge in Alaska ruled in late June that retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan could run against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, and a few months later, after the first round of balloting, state election officials finalized the top four candidates for Alaska’s unique system. Both Dan Sullivans advanced to the general election.
This has generated all kinds of allegations that the Democratic nominee, former Rep. Mary Peltola, and her allies coordinated behind the scenes to get the other Sullivan onto the ballot. The candidate and her team repeatedly said they weren’t involved, but The New York Times published a report Wednesday that called those denials into question. From the article:
The Peltola campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in his candidacy. But The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader. The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.
Not surprisingly, Republicans who were already worked up about the allegations when there was no evidence became apoplectic in response to the newspaper’s report. Donald Trump publishedfourseparaterants to his social media platform, for example, each of which alleged unidentified crimes, called for Peltola’s disqualification or both. Around the same time, the president told reporters that the Democratic nominee “should resign,” and at a Wednesday night rally in Ohio, he also called for her prosecution.
On Thursday morning, Trump hedged on whether Peltola should be allowed to serve in the Senate, even if Alaskans elect her.
Other Republicans went down a similar path. Incumbent Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered an investigation into whether Peltola’s campaign should face criminal or civil penalties; Attorney General Todd Blanche scurried to Fox News to accuse Democrats of “cheating”; House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer launched a congressional investigation; and even Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who’s generally been friendly with Peltola, complained of “a culture of deception.”
For now, it’s fair to say that there are legitimate questions about what transpired, though they don’t yet have definitive answers. That said, even if the allegations are true, it’s important not to lose sight of the relevant details.
There’s a qualitative difference between genuine electoral scandals and routine campaign mischief. Asking an official who oversees a state elections system to “find” 11,780 votes that don’t exist is disgraceful on a historic scale, but looking for candidates with names similar to an opponent is a tactic with a deep American pedigree. It’s common enough to have earned a familiar name: ballot-stacking.
That’s not to say it’s a good thing. It’s not. But both parties have utilized this strategy for generations — there’s a classic story from 1946 about John F. Kennedy’s first congressional primary, which included two men named Joseph Russo — and it’s never been the subject of hysterics, Justice Department prosecutions or federal investigations.
The same is true of campaign mischief in general. Republicans, including one of Trump’s own lawyers, tried to help Kanye West qualify for the presidential ballot in 2020, as part of a dumb trick. GOP operatives did the same thing in the 2024 race, trying to boost Cornel West’s independent presidential campaign as part of an effort to improve Trump’s chances.
Even in the Sullivan-Peltola race, the Senate Republicans’ top super PAC has invested in a Green Party candidate from Arizona — not because it supports his candidacy, but because it’s playing a cheap electoral game.
Again, if members of Team Peltola denied involvement in a scheme they were involved in, they’ll deserve to be criticized for underhanded campaign tactics. But to pretend that the latest apparent instance of ballot-stacking is some kind of hair-on-fire scandal is a mistake.
Lawmakers on Thursday got pushback from the government on a proposal to de-criminalise the publishing or reproduction of political content on the eve and on the day of elections.
As it stands, the law prohibits political messaging on the eve of, and the day of, elections – on penalty of a prison sentence of up to one year, or a fine up to €5,000, or both.
The aim is to prevent the circulation of content that might influence the outcome of elections.
The matter came to the fore after a number of people – including candidates for MP – were questioned by police over social media posts they made just prior to the parliamentary elections held in May this year.
Akel and Alma have drafted two separate bills aiming to relax the prohibitions and downgrade infractions from a criminal offence – as they are now – to an administrative fine.
Akel proposes that infractions be punishable by a fine of €2,000.
But the attorney-general’s office said this amount was too low, and also posed the issue of the ability to collect on such fines.
Under Akel’s proposal, only paid advertisements and sponsored content would be banned during the so-called ‘silence period’.
Regular people, making comments on social media, would be exempt.
However, the exemption would not apply to individuals designated as Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs).
In Cyprus, a PEP is an individual who holds or has held a prominent public function, along with their family members and close associates. This includes heads of state or government, senior politicians, high-ranking government, judicial, or military officials, senior executives of state-owned enterprises, and important political party officials.
Meanwhile the interior ministry raised other objections. Officials argued it would be extremely difficult to distinguish between spontaneous personal opinions posted online and organised political campaigning, especially when it comes to accounts operating under pseudonyms.
Moreover, criminalising content by PEPs but not by others might pose issues of discriminatory practices.
For this reason, the ministry counter-proposes that the infractions remain a criminal offence on the books, but in practice they would be converted into a fine of at least €5,000 – imposed by the Chief Returning Officer.
In case of repeat infractions, the monetary penalty would be increased.
The House interior affairs committee will continue discussing the issue at a later date.
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