If America First was a super PAC, as some outlets have incorrectly labeled it, it would be required to disclose its list of donors. But non-profit, 501(c)4 organizations, known as "social welfare organizations," are not legally required to produce such disclosures, making them an extremely attractive option to use for political purposes.

Robert Maguire, political nonprofit investigator at the Center for Responsive Politics, told Business Insider that these 501(c)4 organizations "can operate pretty much like a super PAC even though "they're not supposed to have politics as their primary interest" because "there is essentially no oversight of these groups."

"So they can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from anonymous donors," he said. "They do not file regular financial reports. And they do not report a lot of their ads and things like that to any entity like the FEC or anything like that."

He added that in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision in 2010, which dealt with the regulation of campaign spending by organizations, liberal and conservative nonprofits have taken advantage of the rules surrounding 501(c)4 organizations to spend heavily for and against candidates by using "issue ads," such as America First's Heller ads, as "sort of political ads."

The IRS, which provides oversight over such nonprofits, has revoked the status from next to no organizations among the hundreds which have spent hundreds of millions in similar ways.

"So, there's a reason they form these groups the way they do, and it's because of that," Maguire said. "They basically get all the perks of non-disclosure and a slow filing schedule and all of these things. And it lacks oversight."

And although a case of illegal coordination between America First and the White House would be extremely tough to pursue, since the ad was not advocating for Trump's election or for the defeat of a candidate and the organization was not a super PAC, Fischer said the episode makes clear "gaps in the law."

Fischer added it's "reasonable to infer" that donors to America First are "coordinating directly with the White House.

He also said the "most important" issue to highlight is that it is not public who is funding America First, which, based on its ability to put forth an approximately $1-million ad buy in a state, is pulling in a substantial amount of cash.

"We don't know if" that money is "coming from special interests who wanted something in policy from the administration, we don't know is it's coming from a foreign government, or if it's coming from a foreign corporation," Fischer said. "And that speaks to the big gap in current law."

(Dean Heller, Susan Collins, and Donald Trump.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Maguire said one regulation that America First "is probably violating" with its brief anti-Heller ad campaign is what's known as "excessive private benefit."

As Maguire explained, "A nonprofit is supposed to be a social welfare organization. It is supposed to exist to provide a social welfare function to a generalized part of the population. It is not supposed to provide excessive benefit to a small select group or to a single individual."

He continued: "And so when you have a group like America First Policies that is run by people who worked on Trump's campaign, who are allies of the Trump administration and do sort of the policy bidding of the Trump administration, you probably have a pretty clear case of excessive private benefit. More than coordination, more than political spending or anything like that. And I think that's something a lot of people miss."

Maguire said that, if the IRS were to look into the matter, the organization could likely find "a pretty good case" that America First was "providing too much private benefit to the administration in general but Donald Trump in particular." As a result, it could lose its tax-exempt status.

(Heller and Collins.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

America First was formed as the Trump presidency's version of "Organizing for Action," which was the 501(c)4 organization that sought to advance President Barack Obama's policy initiatives.

Fischer said the two organizations were "somewhat analogous," but added that OFA, which was originally Organizing for America, was housed within the Democratic National Committee during Obama's first term, which meant that all the contributors had to be publicly disclosed. The organization was spun off into a 501(c)4 during Obama's second term, when it reluctantly later disclosed its donors voluntarily after facing initial criticism.

But Fischer described the group as "never" being "particularly effective."

"To my knowledge, they didn't spend a lot of money," he said. "They didn't engage in ads. They were never really a major player."

"But I think in some ways, Obama opened the door to this sort of activity and the Trump administration is exploiting it to much more sinister effect," he continued, adding that America First is "apparently raising much more money and getting much more aggressive."

Maguire, like Fischer, also made note of OFA's lack of high-dollar ad campaigns similar to America First's move to blast Heller.

"So they weren't going in to elections and sort of hitting ... anyone with big ad buys, big critical ad buys," he said. "America First Policies is kind of a sledgehammer compared to what was maybe a scalpel for Organizing for America."

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