republican senate candidates and also potentially millions of dollars in illegal spending toward donald trump's 2016 presidential campaign. under campaign finance law the nra, any outside group, can't give millions of dollars to a political campaign. they can spend as much money as they want airing their own ads,n but they can't coordinate their ad strategy, coordinate their spending with the campaign because that would basically be the same bthing, giving illega contributions to the campaign. so this alleged scheme, the way it worked, is that the nra hired a company to buy ads supporting its preferred candidates, whether donald trump or josh hawley or these other candidates who are allegedly the beneficiaries of these schemes. but what the investigation turned up was that the company the nra hired to buy its ads was actually just a front group. it was the same media company ni that was doing all the ad buying for donald trump and josh hawley. they were just doing it with a different name on paper. not only was it the same company, literally the same guy signed off on all the ad buys for both the campaign and the nra.th it's hard to argue it's not illegal coordination when there aren't even two people coordinating with each other.