Left to right: Dick Morris, Norm Coleman, Brian Melendez

The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party charged former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman and a GOP lawyers’ group with violating Federal Election Campaign laws by raiseingmoney for a post-recount lawsuit challenging the results of the Senate recount.

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) is soliciting donations for a legal contest of election results certified by the state Canvassing Board. The results show Al Franken defeated Coleman by 225 votes. But the DFL Party’s complaint says the RNLA has failed to register with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and is breaking the law by taking sums in excess of legal limits and from corporations that aren’t allowed to donate.

The DFL complaint also names Coleman for having failed to report contributions to his campaign from the RNLA.

Federal law allows a new contribution limit separate from the pre-Election Day campaign in the case of a recount, the DFL complaint acknowledges, but so-called “soft money” is not allowed. The RNLA is an unregistered 527 organization under Internal Revenue Service code, Democrats contend, and cannot steer cash to Coleman’s campaign, his recount committee or the state GOP’s federal account. Yet that’s what appears to be happening at a NewsMax Media Web page, where check boxes indicate donations for as much as $5,000 are being accepted — far more than the $2,300 maximum allowed by law.

What if the RNLA isn’t really giving Coleman money?

“The Coleman campaign should publicly declare that it has received and expects to receive no contributions whatsoever from the Republican National Lawyers Association,” DFL Chair Brian Melendez said in a statement, adding that such a declaration “would then expose the RNLA as a group that is simply defrauding Republican contributors.”

Another link to the RNLA fundraising Web page is via a Newsmax article by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, or a separate appeal from the mysterious GOPUSA also signed by Morris.