FEC commissioner who blocked regulation of Drudge, Internet, steps down

by Paul Bedard | Feb 7, 2018

Lee E. Goodman, who led a battle to stop Democrats from imposing political regulations on the Internet and news sites like the Drudge Report and other media, is stepping down from the Federal Election Commission.

Goodman, an elections lawyer and adviser, plans to leave Feb. 16. He will join the political law group of Wiley Rein in Washington.

“Serving the American people as a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission has been a profound honor,” he said in a resignation letter to President Trump.

For years, Goodman has been a tireless voice for First Amendment rights on the internet. He has blocked several flagrant and subtle efforts by FEC Democrats to impose regulations on conservative media, the internet, and major websites like Fox, the Drudge Report, Facebook, and Twitter.

“Since the agency’s inception, the Federal Election Commission’s unique mandate to respect the core constitutional rights of citizens acting, speaking and associating for democratic purposes has provoked criticism from those who disagree with the balance drawn,” he wrote Trump.

“But protecting First Amendment rights is an inherent part of the Commission’s mission. Thus, I have endeavored throughout my service to preserve the Constitutional right of American citizens to speak, hear, and think freely about their democracy. It has been my duty and privilege to defend this fundamental human freedom,” penned Goodman.

He first warned of Democratic attacks on conservative voices during a 2014 interview with Secrets.

“I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” said Goodman, who was chairman of the FEC at the time.

“The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications,” he added.

Read more at Washington Examiner

 

 

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FEC complaint alleges Hillary, DNC, broke election law by not disclosing Trump-Russia dossier funding

Today the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign committee violated campaign finance law by failing to accurately disclose the purpose and recipient of payments for the dossier of research alleging connections between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia.  The CLC’s complaint asserts that by effectively hiding these payments from public scrutiny the DNC and Clinton “undermined the vital public information role of campaign disclosures.”

On October 24, The Washington Post revealed that the DNC and Hillary for America paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig into Trump’s Russia ties, but routed the money through the law firm Perkins Coie and described the purpose as “legal services” on their FEC reports rather than research. By law, campaign and party committees must disclose the reason money is spent and its recipient.

“By filing misleading reports, the DNC and Clinton campaign undermined the vital public information role of campaign disclosures,” said Adav Noti, senior director, trial litigation and strategy at CLC, who previously served as the FEC’s Associate General Counsel for Policy. “Voters need campaign disclosure laws to be enforced so they can hold candidates accountable for how they raise and spend money. The FEC must investigate this apparent violation and take appropriate action.”

“Questions about who paid for this dossier are the subject of intense public interest, and this is precisely the information that FEC reports are supposed to provide,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal and FEC reform at CLC. “Payments by a campaign or party committee to an opposition research firm are legal, as long as those payments are accurately disclosed. But describing payments for opposition research as ‘legal services’ is entirely misleading and subverts the reporting requirements.”

While details of the payment arrangements remain scarce, FEC records indicate that the Hillary campaign and the DNC paid a total of $12 million to Perkins Coie for “legal services.”  Marc Elias, a Perkins partner and general counsel for Hillary’s campaign, then used some portion of those funds to turn around and hire Fusion GPS who then contracted with a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to compile the now-infamous dossier.  Per the Daily Caller:

It was revealed on Tuesday that the Clinton campaign and DNC began paying Fusion GPS, the research firm that commissioned the dossier, last April to continue research it was conducting on Trump. The Washington Post reported that Fusion approached lawyers at Perkins Coie, the firm that represented the campaign and DNC, offering to sell its investigative services.

Marc Elias, a Perkins Coie partner, and the general counsel for the campaign and DNC, oversaw the operation, according to The Post.

It is not clear how much Democrats, through Perkins Coie, paid Fusion for the project, which lasted until early November. Federal Election Commission records show that the campaign and DNC paid the law firm $12 million during the election cycle.

Ironically, most of the sources listed in the dossier were based in Russia and include a “senior Kremlin official” as well as other “close associates of Vladimir Putin.”  Moreover, as CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell notes, it’s highly likely that some portion of the $12 million paid to Perkins Coie by the DNC and Hillary campaign made it’s way into the pockets of those “senior Kremlin officials” as compensation for the services.

In the dossier, Steele cites numerous anonymous sources, many of which work in the upper echelons of the Russian government.

The first two sources cited in the dossier’s first memo, dated June 20, 2016, are “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” and “a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin.”

A third source is referred to as “a senior Russian financial official.” Other sources in the dossier are described as “a senior Kremlin official” and sources close to Igor Sechin, the head of Russian oil giant Rosneft and a close associate of Vladimir Putin’s.

To summarize, after a full year of mainstream media hysteria over alleged Trump-Russia collusion, it now appears as though the Hillary campaign may have been the only one to funnel cash to “Kremlin operatives” in return for political dirt…

Of course, we have no doubt that Hillary was in the dark about all of these arrangements.

Source:

FEC Complaint: Hillary for America & DNC Failure to Disclose

Via Zero Hedge

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Featured Image: Via @HilaryClinton/Twitter

The post FEC complaint alleges Hillary, DNC, broke election law by not disclosing Trump-Russia dossier funding appeared first on Intellihub.

FEC Rejects Democrats' Plan To Target Drudge, Breitbart

The efforts of top Federal Election Commission Democrat, Ellen Weintraub, to demand an inquisition into the potential coordination with Russians of conservative news outlets like Infowars, Breitbart and the Drudge Report, have been dashed as The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has declined her proposal, stating it "cannot support proposals that would burden the free speech rights of American citizens based on incomplete information about foreign activities in the 2016 election."

As Breitbart"s Colin Madine writes, the FEC has declined to consider new rulemaking over alleged foreign influence in the 2016 presidential election that could target conservative media including InfoWars and Breitbart News. In a statement released by Vice Chair Caroline Hunter and Commissioners Lee Goodman and Matthew Petersen, the members state they “cannot support proposals that would burden the free speech rights of American citizens based on incomplete information about foreign activities in the 2016  election.”

They further describe Weintraub’s proposal as one that would “‘blunt’ the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United.” In the opinion of three members who wrote the statement, there is no information currently showing that the FEC’s existing rules that prohibit foreign involvement in U.S. elections are “inadequate to detect, enforce, and punish violations.”

The statement was released by the three Republicans serving as FEC commissioners. Weintraub and Democrat Steven Walther are the other two current members, meaning there is at least a 3-2 majority in the Republicans favor on this issue.

The FEC commissioners acknowledge in their statement that a number of government agencies are currently investigating alleged foreign interference, and address the FEC’s role, specifically noting the importance of not taking a position of political bias:

The Federal Election Commission should cooperate with these other agencies while maintaining necessary confidentiality and decorum in our own processes. 

We must resist any efforts to politicize or compromise the integrity of this agency’s enforcement process or the investigations of other agencies, for the subject matter at issue implicates profoundly important national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

At least in the case of the FEC, leftists seem to be back to square one in their efforts to shut down conservative media.

Read their entire statement below:

Federal Judge Just Struck Major Blow Against Two-Party System: Media Silent

February 7, 2017   |   Carey Wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) Last week, a federal judge provided a long overdue victory for alternative political parties in the United States. The ruling found the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the institution that oversees the Commission on Presidential Debates, failed to sufficiently examine evidence challenging two-party dominance in national debates.  The judge asserted there was no evidence “that the FEC considered the relevant factors or took a hard look at the evidence.”

The ruling, issued in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, focused on a 2014 complaint regarding the 2012 election filed by the non-profit organization Level the Playing Field. It also focused on objections from the Green Party and Libertarian Party (which were dismissed by a federal judge last year). According to Buzzfeed News, one of the few mainstream outlets to cover the ruling, there were two main elements:

“The first part involves the FEC’s dismissal of two administrative complaints claiming the debate commission and its directors violated election laws by engaging in partisan activity in support of the Democratic and Republican parties. The Green Party, Libertarian Party, and other challengers presented evidence that commission directors contributed to candidates and made statements supporting particular parties.”

The second part focused on Level the Playing Field’s request “that the FEC revise its rules to block the the commission from using a polling threshold to decide participation in presidential and vice-presidential debates.” The commission requires that a candidate receive 15% support or higher in five national polls in order to be invited to the debates. Level the Playing Field’s request was denied, and in response, the group compiled analysis from experts, who highlighted “the hundreds of millions of dollars a candidate would have to spend to meet the 15 percent polling target, and argued that the rule was not an objective criteria.”

They claimed “it was specifically designed to keep out candidates not affiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties,” Buzzfeed explained.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, a faction of the Federal Election Commission, has been criticized for these biases before. The commission’s board of directors has overt partisan leanings. As the International Business Times has noted:

“The Commission On Presidential Debates board is currently chaired by Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. and Michael D. McCurry. Fahrenkopf is a former chairman for the Republican National Committee and McCurry was press secretary under President Bill Clinton.”

As journalist Ben Swann astutely explained during the 2012 election:

“So let’s be clear: a debate commission that’s run by former bigwigs from the Republican and Democrat parties and creates a 15% polling rule in five national polls isn’t trying to create inclusion — they’re trying to prevent it. If you don’t have the money of the two big parties, getting your name out nationally to get into those polls, well, it can only happen if you’re a billionaire like Ross Perot. Aside from billionaires, no one else has a chance.”

Level the Playing Field’s suit further alleged that members of the board had conflicts of interest because of their political contributions. Judge Tanya Chutkan further documented the commission’s biases in her summary opinion:

“Moreover, Fahrenkopf has stated that the CPD was not likely to look with favor on including third-party candidates in the debates, and Kirk has stated that he personally believed the CPD should exclude third-party candidates from the debates.”

She also acknowledged the commission’s inherent commitment to the two-party system:

“The CPD is ‘bipartisan’ by its own description: the press release announcing its formation stated that it was a ‘bipartisan . . . organization formed to implement joint sponsorship of general election presidential and vice-presidential debates . . . by the national Republican and Democratic committees between their respective nominees.’”

Ultimately, she ruled that the FEC “failed to show that it properly considered all of the evidence and arguments presented by the challengers” when it was supposed to review its rules in 2014. She called that rejection “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law,” asserting that “the evidence unaddressed – or outright ignored – by the FEC is quite substantial.” She also pointed out the FEC’s “refusal to engage in thoughtful, reasoned decision-making in either enforcement or rulemaking in this case.”

Chutkan ordered the commission to review its previous decision and gave them 30 days to do so. According to Peter Ackerman, Level the Playing Field’s founder, the decision “lays the groundwork for removing the primary obstacle to providing Americans with the independent alternative to the two parties that polls clearly indicate they want.“

Alexandra Shapiro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, praised the decision, pointing out that it “marked the first time the FEC and CPD have been successfully challenged over debate rules. This is an enormously important ruling.”

“It could pave the way for a new kind of election in 2020,” she said.

In an age where Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the options the political establishment provides them, this small but vital ruling could signal a turning point when it comes to promoting exposure for presidential candidates who are not members of the country’s two-party duopoly.

Unsurprisingly, according to Buzzfeed, the FEC declined to comment on Judge Chutkan’s ruling.

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