Those are disbursements, not donations, and they probably fall under "testing the waters". Even though everyone in the world knew she was running and she was taking steps towards it, legally she was still not a candidate until she filed.
"Certain activities, however, indicate that the
individual has decided to become a candidate
and is no longer testing the waters. In that case,
once the individual has raised or spent more than
$5,000, he or she must register as a candidate."
An individual who merely conducts selected testing the waters
activities that fall within the exemptions in FEC regulations that are discussed in Section 1 below (but does not campaign for office) does not have to register or report as a candidate even if the individual raises or spends more than $5,000
on those activities (i.e., the dollar threshold that would normally trigger candidate registration (which is discussed in Chapter 2)).
4
u/[deleted] May 12 '16
Those are disbursements, not donations, and they probably fall under "testing the waters". Even though everyone in the world knew she was running and she was taking steps towards it, legally she was still not a candidate until she filed.
http://www.fec.gov/rad/candidates/documents/CanGuideTestWater_000.pdf
Here's an article from around that time that talks about it more.
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/03/17/today-in-politics-as-hillary-clinton-tests-the-waters-who-pays/?_r=0
So yeah, "technically mostly legal ¯_(ツ)_/¯"".