Jedd Coburn
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2693100-Complete-File-From-Motl/annotations/273312.html">https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2693100-Complete-File-From-Motl/annotations/273312.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><span style="font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Allison LeFer, a.k.a. Allie Andrew, ran Direct Mail and Communications, the mail house WTP/ATP used in the 2008, 2010, and 2012 campaigns. In this email to Andrew O'Neill, Allison LeFer inquires into the status of a campaign mailer. O'Neill replies that Christian LeFer "just got done discussing" the mailer with National Right to Work Committee executive director Jedd Coburn.</span>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><article id="post-1222" class="hnews item post-1222 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-campaign-spending category-corruption category-elections category-government category-news category-politics tag-2008-gop-primary tag-2010-gop-primary tag-2012-gop-primary tag-allison-lefer tag-american-tradition-partnership tag-art-wittich tag-atp tag-campaign-finance tag-christian-lefer tag-citizens-united tag-dimitri-kesari tag-direct-mail-and-communications tag-jedd-coburn tag-jonathan-motl tag-montana-citizens-for-right-to-work tag-national-right-to-work-committee tag-smart-simple-campaigns tag-western-tradition-partnership tag-wtp top-term-post_tag-2008-gop-primary featured-media featured-media-image" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Article" style=""><section class="entry-content clearfix" itemprop="articleBody" style="margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px 278.203px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HELENA – Thousands of newly uncovered documents and recently filed court records bolster the already mounting evidence tying the<b> anti-union<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiskv_cvcjKAhXCkQ8KHWrrA5IQFggpMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnrtwc.org%2F&usg=AFQjCNEtxHcoY5xlKYXH9kQf8guj_IRfZw&sig2=WbHesVP0UpX5BxMfivN_dw" style=""> National Right to Work Committee</a> to the political activities of conservative nonprofit groups <a href="http://missoulian.com/news/local/american-tradition-partnership-documents-suggest-illegal-coordination-with-gop/article_6c20c00e-223a-11e2-87db-001a4bcf887a.html" style="">accused of improperly coordinating </a>Republican legislative primary campaigns in Montana.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Emails, documents, and affidavits recently obtained by Montana’s <a href="http://www.politicalpractices.mt.gov/default.mcpx" style="">commissioner of political practices</a> paint a detailed picture of how the national anti-union group oversaw the activities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership" style="">American Tradition Partnership</a>, the group at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in Montana Republican primary campaigns in 2008, 2010, and 2012.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The National Right to Work Committee is a 501(c)4 “social welfare” group that, <a href="https://www.irs.gov/Charities-%26-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Social-Welfare-Organizations" style="">according to the IRS</a>, is not supposed to engage in “direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”</font></p><aside class="scaip scaip-1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tens of thousands of pages of emails obtained by Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl show a link between top NRTWC officials and political campaign activities in Montana.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A former NRTWC employee said in a sworn affidavit filed in Helena District Court that NRTWC staff was relocated to Montana to work on the 2010 primary campaign and their work was overseen by the political director of the national organization, Dimitri Kesari.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Emails provided to Motl show that <b>National Right to Work executive director Jedd Coburn was in regular communication with the groups doing political work in Montana and provided text for candidates’ campaign materials.</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motl said this latest trove of information is significant because it proves ATP was not acting as independent issue advocacy organizations, as the groups claimed, but were instead part of a massive, coordinated campaign machine funded by an out-of state organization with the goal of changing the make-up of the Montana Legislature.</font></p><aside class="scaip scaip-2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="attachment_1228" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 6px 20px 12px 0px; float: left; max-width: 488px;"><p class="wp-caption-text" style="margin: 5px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christian LeFer as he appears on his Twitter profile.</font></p></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Christian LeFer was here as a field operative for National Right to Work. Once you get there, then National Right to Work’s central role is more apparent,” Motl said. “I don’t think you can underestimate the significance, or the threat, that a coordinated, funded, centralized corporate-take-over of candidates poses (to elections).”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motl said in 2008, when Western Tradition Partnership first emerged on the scene in Montana, and in 2010 when the group changed its name to American Tradition Partnership, most people, including a previous commissioner of political practices, believed the group was an independent entity.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You can see from looking at all of these documents that it wasn’t,” Motl said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee did not return multiple phone calls or emails seeking comment for this story. Christian LeFer, who was the director of Montana Citizens for Right to work and ran two political nonprofits in Montana, also did not respond to email inquiries.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to a <a href="http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=selectfields" style="">U.S. Senate lobbying disclosure database</a>, NRTWC spent more than $42 million between 1999 and 2016 lobbying the Senate to pass a national “Right to Work” bill. Dimitri Kesari was one of the group’s top lobbyists in Washington, D.C., during most of that period. Montana is one of the few Western states without a “right-to-work” law. Such laws prohibit labor unions from requiring employees to join the union or pay dues as a condition of employment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LeFer’s Montana nonprofit group Western Tradition Partnership made national headlines in 2012 when <a href="http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/big-sky-big-money/story/documents-found-meth-house-bare-inner-workings-dar/" style="">Frontline and ProPublica reported about boxes of documents</a> that revealed how the organization coordinated with Republican legislative candidates.</font></p><div id="attachment_1246" class="wp-caption module image alignright" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 6px 0px 12px 20px; float: right; max-width: 353px;"><img data-attachment-id="1246" data-permalink="https://montanafreepress.org/documents-detail-right-to-works-involvement-in-montana-elections/wtp_atp/" data-orig-file="https://i1.wp.com/montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WTP_ATP.jpg?fit=407%2C309&ssl=1" data-orig-size="407,309" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{" aperture="aperture" credit="credit" camera="camera" caption="caption" created_timestamp="created_timestamp" copyright="copyright" focal_length="focal_length" iso="iso" shutter_speed="shutter_speed" title="title" orientation="orientation" data-image-title="WTP_ATP" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i1.wp.com/montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WTP_ATP.jpg?fit=300%2C228&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i1.wp.com/montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WTP_ATP.jpg?fit=407%2C309&ssl=1" class="wp-image-1246 jetpack-lazy-image jetpack-lazy-image--handled" src="https://i1.wp.com/montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WTP_ATP.jpg?resize=353%2C268" alt="WTP_ATP" width="353" height="268" data-recalc-dims="1" data-lazy-loaded="1" srcset="https://i1.wp.com/montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WTP_ATP.jpg?w=407&ssl=1 407w, https://i1.wp.com/montanafreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WTP_ATP.jpg?resize=300%2C228&ssl=1 300w" sizes="(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px" style="vertical-align: middle; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; clear: both; display: block;" /><p class="wp-caption-text" style="margin: 5px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Western Tradition Partnership in 2010 changed its name to American Tradition Partnership.</font></p></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>WTP is also the group that <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/MT-expenditures-decision.pdf" style="">successfully sued the state in 2011</a> and eventually <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/0625/Supreme-Court-strikes-down-Montana-law-reaffirming-Citizens-United" style="">overturned Montana’s 100-year-old ban on corporate spending</a> in elections.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former staffers and interns who worked for WTP, its successor group American Tradition Partnership, and Christian and Allison LeFer, the Colorado couple who ran those organizations and a host of other political groups, <b>turned over thousands of emails to Motl as part of an investigation leading up to a civil lawsuit</b>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/politics/new-cache-of-wtp-emails-preview-arguments-coming-in-wittich/article_d8ee4df6-272e-5727-959c-e9f547a781f1.html" style="">Motl is suing Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich</a> in Helena District Court, alleging Wittich broke Montana campaign finance laws by accepting illegal corporate campaign contributions.</b> Motl alleges WTP/ATP and other groups provided coordinated campaign services to Wittich and other conservative Republican candidates at little or no cost to the candidates.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wittich has denied the allegations, saying he paid for the services he was provided. He has accused Motl of engaging in a “<a href="http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2015/12/22/wittich-motl-tussle-continues/77776142/" style="">political witch hunt</a>.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That case is scheduled to go to jury trial March 28.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motl made the email documents available for inspection by reporters in response to a series of public information requests from the Montana Free Press and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of the documents in the emails tying NRTWC to WTP/ATP’s Montana primary campaign activities include:</font></p><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 24px 25px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emails showing NRTWC’s executive director,<b> Jedd Coburn, wrote the text of “issue letters” on behalf of Montana Republican legislative candidates;</b></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emails showing Christian and Allison LeFer, a.k.a. Allie Andrews, and their staff were in regular communication with <b>Coburn </b>and other NRTWC staff and officers regarding WTP/ATP campaign activities;</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Emails showing that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Dimitri Kesari, who was the director of NRTWC’s government affairs department, conducted candidate training seminars in Bozeman for ATP-vetted candidates, and a “Campaign Training School” in a Chicago suburb for NRTWC field staff, which Christian LeFer attended;</span></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emails showing the LeFers and other WTP/ATP staff worked with Kesari on various projects, including a candidate “target list”;</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written statements indicating that ATP/WTP staffers were paid by NRTWC, and that Kesari “ultimately cuts checks” to LeFer and other ATP staffers;</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A sworn affidavit by former NRTWC employee Dennis Fusaro stating that NRTWC sent four staffers to Montana to work for LeFer in 2010;</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A sworn statement by Fusaro that the NRTWC staff, provided “labor, skilled services (e.g. computer work, copy writing), printing, mail preparation, and equipment usage for the benefit of candidates at reduced costs and even, at times, free.”</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A sworn statement by Fusaro that NRTWC ran, and paid for, a direct mail program and conducted phone banking on behalf of candidates;</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emails showing that NRTWC communications director Jeremy Dahl provided “walk lists” and “issue id’d lists” and other valuable voter information to candidates.</font></li></ul><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
A review of the emails indicates O’Neill was deeply involved in the day-to-day operations of the organizations centered on GOP legislative campaigns. The emails indicate O’Neill and other WTP/ATP staffers had regular communication with the LeFers and high-level NRTWC officials surrounding the campaigns of Republican legislative candidates.Many of the highlights of the emails come from Andrew O’Neill, a staffer who worked on graphics and website design on behalf of WTP/ATP and the various campaign services corporations run by the LeFers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one of the emails, a document details the offerings of a turn-key campaign operation called Smart Simple Campaigns which says: “EVERYTHING BELOW WE DO FOR INVITEES IS FREE OR AT COST.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another email, Christian LeFer invited 26 Republican legislative candidates to candidate training seminar in Bozeman.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Your campaign’s effectiveness and your ability to recruit volunteers, and fundraise will immensely benefit, money-back guaranteed,” the email states, adding, “Please do not forward…”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motl said that is the main problem with the operation: The NRTWC-affiliated groups in Montana provided services and labor to certain candidates without disclosing what was done or how much was spent. In some cases, the documents show, those groups gave away those services for free.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The significant thing for Montanans is that in the 2010 Montana Republican primary elections, there was a group that consistently sought privacy with the candidates it was working with, and provided those candidates services that were compensated by paid professional staff with the payment being from the National Right to Work Committee to those staff people,” Motl said. “Those paid staff provided sophisticated, targeted voter id lists for the legislative districts that candidates were running in. They provided walking lists for the candidates. They did graphics for the candidates; they built websites. And the candidates didn’t pay for it.”</font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew O’Neill’s emails</font></h2><h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,101 pages selected from some 14,000 pages submitted to Motl</font></h4><div id="DV-viewer-2693100-Complete-File-From-Motl" class="DV-container" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 8px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dennis Fusaro’s affidavit</font></h2><div id="DV-viewer-2698141-2015-01-16-Dennis-Fusaro-Affidavit" class="DV-container" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 8px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.5;" /></div></div></aside></aside></section></article><div class="article-bottom nocontent" style="margin: 0px 249.234px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><aside id="largo-author-widget-2" class="widget widget-1 odd default largo-author clearfix" style="margin-bottom: 24px;"><div class="author-box row-fluid author vcard clearfix" style="width: 965.797px; clear: both; margin: 0px;"><h3 class="widgettitle" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.12rem; z-index: 30;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ABOUT <span class="fn n"><a class="url" href="https://montanafreepress.org/author/jadam984/" rel="author" title="See all posts by John S. Adams" style="text-decoration-line: none;">JOHN S. ADAMS</a></span></font></h3><div class="photo"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John S. Adams is an award-winning investigative reporter who has covered Montana politics, government, and people for more than a decade. Prior to founding the Montana Free Press Adams was the statehouse bureau chief for the Great Falls Tribune and a correspondent for USA Today.</font></p></div></aside></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div>