President Obama’s campaign denied that he violated campaign finance laws by suggesting that donors contribute as much as $10 million to his official super PAC.

“The President was making the point that the Republicans are raising massive sums for Super PACs, but that this is not how his own Presidential campaign is being funded,” a campaign spokesperson told The Washington Examiner. “This is most obviously not a solicitation.”

The question arose based on Obama’s remarks at a New York City fundraiser this week. “The bad news is that these folks have super PACs that are writing $10 million checks and have the capacity to just bury us under the kind of advertising that we’ve never seen before,” Obama said. “We don’t need to match these folks dollar for dollar.  We can’t.  I mean, if somebody here has a $10 million check — (laughter) — I can’t solicit it from you, but feel free to use it wisely.  (Laughter.)  But that’s not our game.”

Cleta Mitchell, a prominent Republican elections lawyer, said that Obama’s comments crossed the legal line.“He clearly was asking for more than $5000 from these donors,” Mitchell explained in an email to The Examiner. “He never said ‘I can only ask you for $5000′ which the [Federal Election Commission] has required. This is the very type of language innuendo that the campaign finance reformers want to regulate all the time.”