Through creative accounting and a little-known quirk in campaign finance laws, President Donald Trump and Republican state parties have shuffled around millions of dollars in financial contributions in ways that effectively evade limits on the amount of money top donors can put up to finance the 2020 presidential campaign.

His Democratic challenger Joe Biden has done it too, but without constructing the labyrinthine web of transactions that Trump has.

Both presidential candidates have used political groups known as joint fundraising committees (JFCs) to solicit huge contributions from their top supporters. In theory, those contributions are supposed to be divided among the respective campaigns and the various state and national party organs that are part of the joint fundraising agreement—with the breakdown in cash falling along the legally prescribed limits on how much an individual can donate to each entity.

But