Social media explodes with wild allegation after Trump slipped mother $100 bill to help pay for her groceries

It was supposed to be a kind-hearted gesture from a former president to a mother-of-three.

But wild claims have now emerged that Donald Trump broke the law when he took a $100 bill from his wallet to help pay for a Pennsylvania woman’s groceries.

While clerks at the Sprankles grocery store in Kittanning were checking the shopper out, Trump took out his wallet, removed a crisp bill and handed it to the cashiers.

‘Here,’ Trump said of her grocery bill. ‘It’s going to go down a little bit. It just went down $100.’

But rather than praise the act of goodwill, many have taken to social media to claim what Trump did was illegal because he is a presidential candidate.

Donald Trump took $100 in cash from his wallet and handed it to a mother-of-three checking out at a local grocery chain in western Pennsylvania on Monday

‘It is illegal for a presidential candidate, or any candidate, to hand out cash to voters in the U.S,’ one X user claimed.

‘Offering money or any form of valuable consideration in exchange for a vote is considered bribery and violates federal election laws.

‘The Federal Election Campaign Act and related laws prohibit this type of conduct to ensure elections are free and fair.’

‘Both the person offering the bribe and the person receiving it could face legal consequences.

But a former head of the Federal Election Commission Hans von Spakovsky called the claims ‘absurd.’

‘Trump was obviously making what he considered to be a charitable donation and that in no way implicates any federal laws governing elections,’ he told Dailymail.com.

Spakovsky now manages the Election Law Reform Initiative at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

 And another legal expert says ‘the payment appears to be perfectly legal’ in his perspective.

Spakovsky said the ‘considerate’ response to ‘her money problems’ did not break election or campaign finance laws.

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‘The ‘swirls’ on social media about this are ridiculous,’ he concluded.

A mother-of-three was grocery shopping with her three sons when Trump arrived at the store between a round table with farmers and a rally – all in neighboring towns of Pittsburgh.

But there is debate over whether the comment Trump made had to do with asking for her vote or whether he even discussed her vote.

Rather, some say that the former president was repeating his promise to bring down grocery prices.

And Election law expert Mike Dimino, a Professor of Law at Widener University Commonwealth Law School, appears to have the same takeaway from the interaction.

Trump toured a local grocery chain in western Pennsylvania on Monday where he helped pay for a woman’s groceries out of his own pocket

       ‘It is illegal to pay someone to vote at all, to refrain from voting, or to vote for a specific candidate. It is not, however, illegal to give money to other people per se,’ he told DailyMail.com

‘If it were,’ he explained, ‘candidates would be prohibited from donating to charities or giving money to homeless people, or maybe even tipping a waiter or hairdresser. The question is whether the payment was for a vote or was purely gratuitous.’

‘Everything I have seen about the incident seems to indicate that there was no quid pro quo,’ Dimino concluded.

‘Trump surely wanted the public-relations benefit of helping a shopper deal manage inflated grocery prices, and he suggested that he could do more to lower prices if he were elected, but he asked nothing of the woman in return for the $100.’