scam pacs

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i forgot 11/19

definition? eg rebuilding am now has high % to compliance and fundraising?

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huh? an 12 23

an12 23 no lnx

'You lost Ivanka': Trump targeted by bogus political action committees

Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Participate in a Meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (PITF) Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019 (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)}:

Mark Alesia

December 29, 2023

These are not real political action committees, but they made an official application to the Federal Election Commission:

– Hey Donnie Dumbf— If Immigrants Poisoning Our Blood Why Do You Keep Breeding With Them

– 10 Stacks To The First (person) Who Hits Donald Trump with a Milkshake

– Donnie, you lost Ivanka. Who’s left?

The FEC has a file of more than 1,500 inactive applications that purport to organize a PAC or a fundraising committee for a specific candidate. Most on the list are obviously bogus, many are profane and some are in support of a celebrity — or a cartoon or fictional character — as a fake candidate.

The late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has applications for a presidential campaign committee. So do Snoop Dogg, Dr. Pepper and Spongebob Squarepants.

READ: Trump reveals weakness every time he complains about losing

The FEC received applications for U.S. Senate campaign committees for Al Capone and Tony Soprano. There was a similar application for a U.S. House campaign committee for Anakin Skywalker.

The Federal Election Commission responds to even the obviously fake applications with a sober letter about fraudulent registrations being illegal.

"It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete committee information under (federal law) when you filed FEC Form 1," the letter says.

"Knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency, including the Federal Election Commission, is punishable under the provisions of (federal law). The Commission may report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

"If the information you submitted in FEC Form 1 is, to the best of your knowledge and belief, true, correct, and complete, please file a response to confirm this."

Trump is a frequent target of the fake political committees. There are Donald Tramp and Donald J. Drumpf applications for presidential fundraising committees. The latter is a reference to the surname of Trump’s ancestors before it was changed.

Several of the applications make statements with their names, including one that references one of Trump’s golf clubs. Doral is a … country club with bedbugs applied to become a political action committee.

We Are Going to (assault) You Every Night When You’re in the Joint Donnie is a reference to Trump facing 91 felony charges in two federal and two state court cases.

Donald Trump has been laundering money for the Russians since the 80s lists Rep. Matt Gaetz as treasurer.

Why would someone spend time on fake FEC applications? One aspiring presidential campaign committee addressed the issue.

The committee’s name: I Don’t Know Why I’m Doing This

NOW READ: Thief takes money from pro-Israel political action committee

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/super-pac/

roger s salon

A super PAC that claims to advocate for wounded veterans raised millions of dollars this year, but spent only $18,000 of it on political activity. The rest of the money was spun off to administrative and marketing services, including to three companies belonging to one person — a former long-shot Democratic congressional candidate, self-published author, certified nutrition-label reader and serial hustler in East Tennessee named Alan Bohms.

The organization, called American Wounded Veterans PAC, bears hallmarks of what campaign finance watchdogs call a "scam PAC" — a for-profit fundraising vehicle that professes to advocate for a cause but makes no clear promise on how it will spend the money raised, and in reality intends to keep most of it, or pay it out to affiliated contractors.

Bohms, along with his lawyer, Matthew Fisher, appears to be at the center of a sprawling, intertwined network of super PAC and nonprofit scammers first revealed in 2019 in a series of exposés about a group called Heroes United PAC.

Bohms, however, has never had his name on a PAC and was never named in those stories. Instead he feeds off of the PACs, one operator in a large network of shadowy marketing companies where affiliated PACs shuttle almost all of the funds they raise.

Following the public exposure and an out-of-court settlement with Montgomery County, Maryland, that network appears to have simply shuttered its old PACs and started afresh in early 2020.

A Salon investigation indicates that Bohms and Fisher remained central figures in this venture. The network itself seems to have stayed intact, as has the larger, even more mysterious network of untraceable telemarketing companies above them that take an even larger cut.

Over the last three years, that larger network has pulled in tens of millions of dollars for the PACs in the name of charitable causes. But the groups plowed almost all of their millions into fundraising and marketing companies, including paying sham companies run by people in their own network.

"Scam PACs" exploit an ill-defined space between federal campaign finance and state charity laws: Political action committees (PACs) operate outside the laws that regulate charities — for example, officially registering with state governments, publicly disclosing their executives, reporting their expenses and so on.

Scam PACs represent "a way for them to get around the charity laws — that's exactly what they're doing," Stuart Discount, chief executive of the Professional Association for Customer Engagement, a trade association for direct marketers, told Reuters for a special report on scam PACs published last January, which touched on the Heroes United scheme.

But scam PACs don't behave like normal political action committees, either. Instead of political advocacy focused on specific issues or an ideological agenda, they solicit money for supposedly charitable causes — children in poverty, cancer victims, law enforcement groups, firefighters, wounded soldiers and the like — and tell donors, often in passing, that part of their efforts involve lobbying politicians about the cause.

None of the PACs mentioned in this story appear to have registered as lobbying organizations with the federal government.

Because super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money with little regulatory oversight, scams can turn tidy profits. In 2018, federal prosecutors indicted two brothers who operated a network of right-wing scam PACs with names like Americans for Law Enforcement PAC, Life and Liberty PAC and Republican Majority Campaign PAC, which over the course of 10 years had bilked donors out of $50 million.

That indictment alleged that "less than 1% of all donor money to the PACs was spent on political contributions." The rest went to fundraising efforts and into the two men's pockets, resulting in a $1.2 million fine.

None of the PACs mentioned in this story appear to have registered as lobbying organizations with the federal government.

While it appears impossible to trace the PAC — the phone number and address that its current treasurer, Michael Simpson, reported to the FEC are both virtual — it's possible to trace that ad payment. That money went into the pocket of the aforementioned Alan Bohms, a Knoxville-area resident with a colorful history and an apparently diverse set of interests, who was himself implicated in a number of multimillion-dollar scam PAC schemes last year.

One of those groups had a name strikingly similar to American Wounded Veterans: The American Coalition for Injured Veterans, which paid vast sums to Bohms' former company, Tampa Media Marketing.

Heroes United PAC spent a total of more than $462,000 on Tampa Media's services between 2018 and February 2020, FEC records show. During that same time frame, the PAC spent only $147,000 on legitimate political activity. That's just one-third of what Bohms' company made in that time, and a mere 0.1% of the group's total fundraising.

In fact, Tampa Media pulled in a combined $2.5 million between 2018 and 2020 cycles, according to data from Open Secrets.

This year, Bohms started fresh, ditching Tampa Media and creating a new company with a generic, essentially invisible moniker: "Campaign Marketing Inc." That company was the eventual recipient of the $18,000 ad buy from the American Wounded Veterans PAC — which itself had also been created in January.

That wasn't all Bohms earned from American Wounded Veterans' innumerable small donors — Campaign Marketing Inc. performed a number of other services for the PAC this year, apparently $129,000 worth.

Additionally, Bohms had registered Campaign Marketing Inc. to do business under two other, equally generic aliases — Prestige Tax & Payroll and Insight Data Management — both of which took payments from American Wounded Veterans.

All told, Bohms took in $173,000 for his services through those companies just this year — all purportedly to run some ads for an unopposed Florida congressman two months before a canceled primary.

No other political group reported paying any of those three companies.

Still, American Wounded Veterans PAC has about $2.3 million in 2020 fundraising to account for. Where did it come from? Almost all of the PAC's receipts are "unitemized," meaning the money came in the form of contributions of $200 or less, so the PAC does not have to disclose those donors. (A great many scam PAC donors are elderly people who quite likely believe they are giving to legitimate charities.)

Campaign finance and government ethics law expert Brett Kappel told Salon this fits the scam PAC pattern.

"One of the more pernicious effects of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has been an explosion in the number of super PAC scams," Kappel said. "Since super PACs can solicit and accept contributions in unlimited amounts, they have become a favorite vehicle for the unscrupulous — many of whom previously ran charity scams."

"Fortunately, the Justice Department has responded to the proliferation of super PAC scams and has successfully prosecuted many scam PAC operators for mail and wire fraud over the past few years," Kappel added.

And where did the money go?

That ostensibly legitimate $18,000 expense appears dubious on a closer look. This year Crist ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for Florida's 13th congressional district, which was originally scheduled for August but ultimately canceled.

It is unclear why Campaign Marketing Inc, spent $18,000 on advertising to support Crist in June. Bohms would not answer that question — although he said he formerly lived in Crist's district, in and around St. Petersburg, Florida.

It is also unclear how Crist feels about a sketchy newcomer PAC using his campaign as a vehicle to raise millions of dollars in the name of wounded U.S. troops. His campaign did not reply to Salon's detailed questions about the PAC, the ads or Bohms.

Reached for comment, Bohms denied he had any direct connection to American Wounded Veterans PAC, though he did say that the group paid him to "do some work."

"I don't care to take part in your article," he said, then hung up.

While Bohms appears to have made good money from American Wounded Veterans, the overwhelming majority of the PAC's cash was spent on telemarketing. The companies involved have generic, forgettable names like "Political Marketing Services," "Market Process Group" and "Campaign Vendor Management Inc.," which make internet searches difficult, but still pull in millions of dollars a year.

Many of these entities appear to be new, and it seems likely they are all part of a single network.

For instance, Campaign Vendor Management is a company in Gulfport, Florida, founded this April by John DiGregorio, who lives near Bohms' old home, in Pinellas County, Florida — Charlie Crist's district. (Florida state records show that in 1993 Bohms registered in Pinellas County as a convicted criminal. He was later charged in Florida with aggravated battery, but the case was apparently dismissed after four years.)

Federal filings reveal a tiered structure, with a level of entities above Bohms that receive massive PAC payments for vague marketing-related services. Those bigger entities, however, are better at hiding their tracks.

Take Political Marketing Services LLC, which is untraceable with any tool short of a subpoena. The company appears to be one of the biggest fish of the PAC network's 2020 scam cycle, pulling in millions of dollars for marketing services this year alone.

The company was created in Wyoming just last year, but FEC records show that in that time it has taken in massive revenues — some in lump sum payments up to $311,000 — but from only four PAC clients, with thematic names: Security in America PAC (which terminated this April after raising $3 million and spending $3,000), Law Enforcement for a Safer America PAC, American Wounded Veterans PAC and the Firefighters Support Association PAC.

One of those clients, Law Enforcement for a Safer America, pulled in more than $12.3 million this year, filings show, but spent only $400,000 — or 3% — on political activity. It paid more than that, $421,947, to a New Jersey company called The Contact Center, Inc., which made a total of $1.2 million in the 2020 election cycle and operates a bogus website with a phone number that appears tied to a modem or fax line.

While Political Marketing Services LLC appears impossible to trace — it is registered under an anonymous agent with the admirably literal appellation Wyoming Registered Agent — an Alabama-based company also called Political Marketing Services LLC received $395,800 in coronavirus small business loans this spring.

The company told the government it was physically located at 9340 Helena Road in Birmingham, Alabama — but that address is a UPS store.

A LinkedIn page exists for Political Marketing Services, which appears to have two employees in Alabama. Its supposed website, political-marketing.net, consists of a single line of text attributed to an "old Chinese proverb": "When the wind of change blows, some build walls, others build windmills."

The site's architect is a political marketing researcher from Germany. He did not reply to Salon's request for comment.

A reporter in Cheyenne sent Salon photos taken of Wyoming Registered Agent's address — a nondescript two-level brick building that hosts mailboxes for dozens of corporate entities from across the country, as well as a skeleton staff of administrative workers who populate the mostly empty suites.

At the reporter's request, a member of the building's staff called Wyoming Registered Agent to inquire about Political Marketing Services. She quickly hung up, telling the reporter that the woman at the other end of the line would not discuss the company.

It is unclear whether Bohms is connected directly to Political Marketing Services. He refused to answer multiple detailed follow-up questions. A Wisconsin lawyer named Matt Fisher, who says he represents Bohms, called Salon to ask what the story was about, but declined to discuss anything on the record.

Fisher's bio claims he is a board member of a law enforcement advocacy charity called Band of Blue. That charity's website, however, does not list him among its board members. IRS records indicate the charity reports less than $25,000 revenue annually.

Fisher told Salon during the call that he did not represent Bohms in connection with election law, which seems far-fetched. Last year, Fisher represented Zachary Bass, the treasurer for Heroes United PAC, and Matthew Greenlee, the group's director and a close associate of Bohms, in their dispute with Montgomery County, Maryland. That case, a double scam split between the PAC and a related charity called the Volunteer Firefighters Association, was covered by multiple national media outlets, and the group ended up settling, agreeing to end solicitations in the county and refund any donations.

That year, Bass was listed as treasurer for five PACs. This year he is listed on none.

"It's pretty rare to catch telemarketers," Eric Friedman, the director of Montgomery County's Office of Consumer Protection, told the Center for Public Integrity at the time. "We think it's a big news story because even though this happened in Montgomery County, it illustrates a nationwide problem where fake PACs are engaging in fake marketing for fake charities."

FEC filings also undermine Bohms' claim that he was not connected to American Wounded Veterans. The treasurer of Firefighters Support Association (which spent 6% of its $3.1 million revenue on political efforts) was also the original treasurer of American Wounded Veterans PAC: Mark Phillips.

While it is not clear whether these any of these LLCs or PACs raise funds for charities — and collect fees for the work — circumstantial evidence abounds.

Phillips, the treasurer of Firefighters Support Alliance, also happens to be a member of a 501c(3) charity run by Bohms called the Volunteer Firefighter Alliance.

And among the Volunteer Firefighter Alliance's other officials is Matthew Greenlee, director of Heroes United PAC, who was paid more than $38,000 for his work with the group in the 2018 fiscal year, according to IRS records.

This charity has had its legitimacy called into question several times, and each time Bohms has defended it affably.

It appears from IRS filings that Bohms, a volunteer firefighter himself, started the VFA (website here) in 2014. The group, which also works under the name Firefighter Cancer Alliance (near-identical website here), has come under scrutiny multiple times from local sheriffs as an apparent scam. (It received a GuideStar "transparency" title in 2017.)

Just last March, for instance, the volunteer Lancaster County Fire and Rescue Department, in South Carolina, cautioned residents against responding to VFA solicitations, saying that local officials believed the letters were a scam: "No funds that are sent to the Texas return address listed would go towards Lancaster County firefighters," the department head told the Lancaster News.

(The VFA website posts this disclaimer: When you receive a pledge confirmation in the mail, you might notice that you are asked to send your contribution to a different address than our corporate office. That address is the mail processing point for our fundraising campaign.)

A review of the organization's tax filings shows that in 2019 the VFA pocketed more than $5 million in contributions, and managed to spend almost that exact same amount — but not on charity work: Almost all of its income went to telemarketing and fundraising efforts. Bohms paid himself $93,864.

In fact, VFA paid more than $2.2 million of its private contributions out to a notorious New Jersey-based telemarketing center called Outreach Calling. In September, the Federal Trade Commission joined the attorneys general of four states in an expansive federal lawsuit filed against Outreach Calling in the Southern District of New York, alleging that the company had scammed consumers out of millions of dollars as primary fundraisers for numerous "sham charities" that were the subjects of legal action.

Outreach Calling has been permanently banned from charity fundraising.

The founder and top executive at Outreach, Mark Gelvan, was connected to a company that specialized in PAC fundraising, called Market Process Group, in a January 2020 Reuters special report. Like Political Marketing Services, that company is impossible to trace without a court subpoena. But during the 2018 and 2020 cycles, Market Process Group made about $18 million from political organizations, according to OpenSecrets, including from American Wounded Veterans, the Firefighters Support Association, Heroes United and the American Alliance for Disabled Children.

But the VFA claims to offer legitimate charitable services, and its website is unusually heavy on specific data, which it presents upfront as proof of the group's work.

The first pieces of information about the charity that viewers see are the "over 47,911,770 people" that Nielsen suggests may have been reached by the group's radio PSAs; its recruitment mailings to "over 8,964,664 people"; the 423 cable outlets and "over 700 radio stations" that it has sent PSAs; and the alleged 949 people that "have contacted us wanting to become involved with their local Fire Department."

The vast majority of that work seems to involve dumping mass amounts of unsolicited direct mail into the world. (For example: "We have mailed out 115,700 Thank You Cards nationally to our Volunteer Firefighters; Shipped 'Thank You' bundles to 1,544 Fire Departments across the United States.")

The site also says the group offers a no-cost life insurance program to volunteer firefighters (a total 25 volunteer firefighters died in 2019), as well as a national crisis hotline: 1-844-550-HERO, "24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Salon called the VFA crisis hotline, and selected the "suicide prevention" option. The call was redirected and immediately dropped. Salon called back and selected the "substance abuse" option. That call was also redirected and dropped. No general operators were available to assist a third attempt.

When Salon informed Bohms about the hang-ups in a text message, he replied, "I will check into that. Thank you."

Salon tried the hotline again several days later, with the same results.

The VFA also offers another connection between Bohms and Heroes United PAC.

In 2017, Bohms disclosed his connection to Heroes United in a phone call with a man who believed he had been the target of an automated call from a group called the Volunteer Firefighters Association — nominally, a different entity from the Volunteer Firefighter Alliance, and the one involved in the scam that Heroes United settled with Montgomery County.

Fisher is the common lawyer between the groups.

One other Volunteer Firefighter Alliance board member took a $93,864 salary: Robert Kesterson, who in 2016 gave Bohms a five-star book review on Amazon, apparently the only one he has received.

In reaction to Bohms' self-published racetrack gambling advice book, "The Art of Horseplay: The Life of a Handicapper," Kesterson wrote:

I have been around horse racing my entire life, even grew up in a thorough bread facility. Got into wagering on races the last few years. Mr. Bohm's system is a well known in horse betting circles. I was surprised at how many "secrets" he turned loose of in this well written book. See you at the races!

Another review of that book says, "If you got this book free, it's still not worth reading!"

"The back of the book and description leads you to believe this is a book on how to handicap horses, what to look for in horses and picking horses to bet on. It does not!!" the reviewer warns. "This is a horrible book."

That review is followed by another, which reads, "The first reviewer is largely correct. Except for a Show Bettor System, this book offers no information on how to handicap horses."

Bohms has self-published a number of other books, including "The Squirrel Commander: Guide to Small Game Hunting," "Eat Less CRAP, Eat More FOOD: A Paleo Crockpot Cookbook" and "Big Al's Golf for Beginners," which can be purchased for $902.81.

Bohms also has a company called Big Al's Hot Dogs. His LinkedIn page features certificates indicating that he completed courses in "Understanding the Dates on Food Labels" and "General Nutrition: Belly Fat" through online classes provided by Texas A&M University.

Bohms originally hails from a small town in northern Illinois, but a person familiar with his family told Salon he had left for Florida decades ago after he was told he had fathered a child. His daughter had disabilities from birth, the person said, but Bohms was out of the picture and unreachable. Two years ago, after a nearly 30-year search, the mother found Bohms through his Twitter account. He has not been responsive, even after his estranged daughter reached out personally. "He wants nothing to do with her," the person said. Bohms, who also has a family in Tennessee, has a three-year-old grandson he does not know about, the source told Salon.

"He has no business running a charitable organization," the person said. "He's a crook, a liar, and waste of time."

Bohms' brief political career was also peculiar. In 2016, he ran for Congress as a Democrat in Tennessee's 1st congressional district, which a regional political operative told Salon has been "Republican-held since before the Civil War."

The bar to get on a ballot in Tennessee is extraordinarily low. "It's 25 signatures total. Anyone can get on," the operative said. "It's bullshit and needs to be changed."

Bohms got on the ballot, and faced no other candidates in the Democratic primary. In the general election, he won 15.4% of the vote against Rep. Phil Roe, the Republican incumbent.

It is unclear why Bohms ran. His campaign committee raised no money, and Tennessee voter rolls do not disclose party affiliation. However, Bohms now regularly identifies himself upfront as a former congressional candidate. (No Democratic candidate had even bothered to run in the district in 2014.)

To the extent Bohms had a campaign platform, it was vaguely libertarian in tone. The East Tennessean characterized him as "a self-described family man and volunteer firefighter who stands for the rights of marginalized groups, wants to get big money out of politics and is a proud supporter of second amendment rights."

He criticized the outsized influence of money in politics on his campaign website:

We should not be elected based on the amount of money we have to spend on an election. After all, because one Candidate has $500,000 to spend and the other only has $2,000, does that make the wealthier Candidate the better man for the job? It definitely means he is less in tune with the needs of the working class. In a democracy we should have the right to elect people on their ideas. The biggest problem I have with this is that these wealthy politicians believe they have the answers to our problems. The job title is "Representative," which means instead of them telling us what they want to do, they should listen and the ask us want we want them to do. Then go to Washington and "represent" our views and opinions. That would be the true definition of the word representative.

As for Bohms himself, FEC records show that he has only ever made one federal campaign donation in his entire life: to Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a fiercely conservative Republican. Bohms gave her campaign and PAC $4,700 in 2018 — less than the maximum allowable amount.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/16/us/police-super-pac-political-group-invs/index.html

10m$

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ref

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/conservative-circles-scams-abound

former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) has used his mailing list as a lucrative tool for many years, and it’s a habit he’s apparently reluctant to break. Even after the Arkansas Republican gave up his Fox News program, apparently to pursue another White House campaign, Huckabee continued to send out emails with “really questionable ads.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) isn’t running for anything, but as discovered last week, he’s also using his list to send out spam-like messages that appear to be scams.

It’s against this backdrop that Kenneth P. Vogel had a great piece this week on the rise of “scam PACs” that target conservative donors.

Since the tea party burst onto the political landscape in 2009, the conservative movement has been plagued by an explosion of PACs that critics say exist mostly to pad the pockets of the consultants who run them. Combining sophisticated targeting techniques with fundraising appeals that resonate deeply among grass-roots activists, they collect large piles of small checks that, taken together, add up to enough money to potentially sway a Senate race. But the PACs plow most of their cash back into payments to consulting firms for additional fundraising efforts.

A POLITICO analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covering the 2014 cycle found that 33 PACs that court small donors with tea party-oriented email and direct-mail appeals raised $43 million – 74 percent of which came from small donors. The PACs spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals, compared to $39.5 million on operating expenses, including $6 million to firms owned or managed by the operatives who run the PACs.

I’m reminded of a line Chris Hayes used a couple of years ago, which continues to ring true: “[M]uch of movement conservatism is a con and the base are the marks.”

Eric Hananoki added soon after, “Media Matters has previously documented how conservatives have scammed their followers. [Erick Erickson], for example, was caught sending a plagiarized email (from Ann Coulter) endorsing a newsletter which purported to reveal a ‘secret’ system to become ‘instant millionaires.’”

And just yesterday, Ben Dimiero noted, “Erick Erickson’s email list subscribers have received a bizarre array of pitches from conspiracy theorists and dubious practitioners warning of the impending death of millions of Americans and promising ‘cures’ to cancer, Alzheimer’s, and aging.”

To be sure, there are some specific differences among these dubious appeals. The Politico piece, for example, highlighted the activities of suspicious political action committees, while the Huckabee, Gingrich, and Erickson examples focus on use of regular ol’ email lists, outside of PAC control.

But the bottom line remains the same: a dynamic now exists in which many conservatives are receiving dubious messages through lists operated by Republican leaders they trust.

The basic idea isn’t entirely new – for decades, groups and political figures sent out direct-mail letters, which regularly included unsavory appeals for cash – but the old model relied on slow and expensive distribution through the mail. It’s cheaper, faster, and easier for these unsavory schemes to be put in motion electronically.

Kevin Drum, meanwhile, asked the question that was on my mind:

So here’s my question: why is this so much more common on the right than on the left? It would be nice to chalk it up to the superior intelligence of liberal audiences and call it a day, but that won’t wash…. One possibility is that a lot of this stuff is aimed at the elderly, and conservatives tend to skew older than liberals. And while that’s probably part of the answer, it’s hardly satisfying. There are plenty of elderly liberals, after all – certainly enough to make them worth targeting with the same kind of fraudulent appeals that infest the right.

Another possibility is that it’s basically a supply-side phenomenon. Maybe liberal outlets simply tend to be less ruthless, less willing to set up scam fundraising organizations than conservative outlets. In fact, that actually does seem to be the case. But again: why?

I honestly have no idea, so let’s open it up to some discussion. Why do these scams seem so much more common on the right than the left?

Explore:

The MaddowBlog, Elections, Erick Erickson, Fundraising, Mike Huckabee, Money in Politics and Newt Gingrich

1/20

aha_let: all these pols may not be bigots at heart, but anti-gay is culture war wedge issue, big w/ evangelicals, so mostly freebie nobrainer upside?

PLUS these hot-button issues are great to generate FEAR thus great for direct mail fundraising (also email) and mebbe GOTV

theory to check: scam pac online fundraise on FEAR?

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axios

a political organization run by David Bossie, President Trump's former deputy campaign manager, has raised millions of dollars by saying it's supporting Trump-aligned conservative candidates — but has spent only a tiny fraction of that money supporting candidates.

Instead, federal records suggest the Presidential Coalition has spent nearly all its money — raised mostly from small-dollar donations — on more fundraising, as well as administrative costs, which include Bossie's salary, according to a new report produced by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) in collaboration with Axios.

The group's mailers and ads, obtained by Axios and reviewed by CLC, a campaign finance watchdog, repeatedly stress Bossie's relationship to Trump. Contributions to the organization increased after Trump's presidential victory and then skyrocketed in 2018.
[nice grapf on viz scam eg 1006 penn ave]
raphic: Harry Stevens/Axios

A senior Trump administration official told Axios: "The problem the president is going to have with this is 1) he does not like when people are perceived to be profiting off of him, and 2) these are not max out donors. This is money that many likely think is going towards the president's re-election effort when it is not. So effectively every dollar groups like Bossie's and similar groups raise is a dollar the campaign does not."

Despite no longer working for the Trump campaign, Bossie is still close to the president. Bossie flew with him on Air Force One in March to a rally in Michigan.
The Trump campaign declined to comment.

Why it matters: "There is a cottage industry of groups targeting vulnerable communities with self-serving borderline scams," CLC writes in its analysis. "What sets the Presidential Coalition apart is that it is explicitly — and successfully — capitalizing on Bossie's connection with the president of the United States."

In response, Bossie called our story "fake news brought to you by a collaboration of the biased liberal media and unabashed left-wing activists."
In a long statement, he charged that CLC cannot fairly assess his organization because the group has a "conflict of interest" because it "is a highly vocal and fierce critic of the landmark Citizens United v. FEC case." (Bossie runs Citizens United.) You can read Bossie's full statement here.
Bossie also said the analysis "totally ignores the legitimate staff, infrastructure and other political activity costs associated with the organization’s work," adding that "it is expensive to raise substantial amounts in small donor contributions using direct mail, digital, and telemarketing."

Details: Onits website, The Presidential Coalition says it has been "dedicated to identifying and supporting conservative candidates running for office at the state and local levels of government" since its founding in 2005.

The group's fundraising appeals also urge supporters to "grow the Republican 'farm team'" and "train and prepare conservative candidates to run and win in local elections."

But based on the 527 organization's IRS data, just $425,442 (or 3%) of the $15.4 million it spent during 2017 and 2018 went to direct political activity, which CLC defines as "direct donations to candidates or political committees, and a small number of state-level candidate ads."

"There is no question that the money spent on programming is well below anything someone in the industry would consider a legitimate amount," said Walter Lukens, CEO of the Lukens Company, a direct response marketing agency.

At least $445,972 was spent on apparent book purchases. Copies of the Presidential Coalition's direct mailers — which Axios obtained and shared with CLC — show the organization offered people who donated above a certain amount (usually $45) a copy of one of Bossie's books, "Trump's Enemies."

Bossie's response on the books: "In 2018, TPC spent a small amount on Trump's Enemies. The bulk of the book premiums, however, where [sic] for copies of Trump's America, which was authored by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. TPC members are very excited to receive these books and DVDs."

Data: Campaign Legal Center's analysis based on Presidential Coalition's forms 8872 from the IRS; Chart: Harry Stevens/Axios

The rest of the money appears to have been spent on more fundraising for the Presidential Coalition, largely via direct mail and telemarketing, expenses to support those activities (such as postage and donor list cultivation), payments to other groups run by Bossie, and administrative expenses.

Compare that to the Republican Governors Association, another 527 organization supporting state-level Republican candidates, which spent about 80% of its funds on campaign contributions and political advertising over the same period.

Meanwhile, more than $650,000 of the Presidential Coalition’s 2017–2018 spending went to two affiliated organizations also run by Bossie, Citizens United and Citizens United Foundation — 1.5 times as much as the group spent on direct political activity.

Those payments included personal salaries for Bossie: In 2017, Bossie earned a $105,541 salary from the Presidential Coalition.
The remaining expenditures went to overhead and administrative costs.

The bottom line: There's a vast difference between what the Presidential Coalition is telling its donors and how it actually spends their money. And as the CLC writes, "Not only do these dubious practices mislead and potentially even prey upon vulnerable populations, but they also drain resources away from more effective political groups" — including Trump's campaign.

Go deeper: Elderly Bossie donors say they thought they were helping Trump

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https://www.axios.com/david-bossie-presidential-coalition-ceases-fundraising-721dde4b-42da-4cba-bbe9-2d917b367039.html

[graf]

former Trump campaign deputy manager David Bossie, who Axios recently exposed as milking donors by flaunting President Trump’s name, is trying to repair and revive his controversial fundraising operation.

The bottom line: Bossie suspended fundraising after Axios revealed that very little of the money he was raising was going to political campaigns. Trump was livid, forcing the Bossie retreat. Now, Bossie tells us he is making several changes — presumably to get back into Trump’s good graces and back into the fundraising business.

The impact: Bossie directed his political group, the Presidential Coalition, to cease all fundraising on May 7, 2 days after Axios published the findings of its investigation, done in collaboration with the Campaign Legal Center (CLC).

That's in part thanks to the president, who personally authorized the Trump campaign to issue a blistering statement, without naming Bossie, condemning "any organization that deceptively uses the president's name, likeness, trademarks, or branding and confuses voters," in the wake of our story.
"The president was pissed," a Trump campaign official told Axios. "He doesn’t like the idea that his supporters would be tricked into donating to things they thought were the campaign ... and he doesn’t like it when people benefit from using his name, especially financially."

The fallout: Bossie told Axios that the group is "currently redesigning our fundraising programs, because of my longstanding relationship with the president and because of my desire to only help the president and the administration."

The Presidential Coalition will no longer reference "The Trump Coalition" in its mailers and fundraising materials, Bossie said. He claims they were going to stop using that language after 2019 anyway, "due to the regulatory regime."
The group will also be far more clear that the Presidential Coalition is an affiliate of Citizens United: "We will print it in our mailers and on the envelopes to be even more transparent," Bossie said.
Despite these changes, Bossie still claims that he doesn't think "there was anything whatsoever that was done outside of the appropriate fundraising avenues."
Read Bossie's full response.

By the numbers: The Presidential Coalition's average daily contributions plunged from over $20,000 per day in early May to under $2,000 per day by the end of June, according to a new Axios/CLC analysis of the organization's latest IRS filing from the first half of 2019.

Worth noting: The majority of donations made to the Presidential Coalition (62%) in the first half of 2019 came from unitemized, small donors who gave less than $200 in a year — similar to the contributions from previous years. The dates of those small-donor contributions are not known, given IRS regulations.

The state of play: Despite the backlash it faced, the Presidential Coalition is still spending just a small percentage of its money on direct political activity, though the percentage is higher than that of 2017 and 2018:

The group spent $5.9 million in the first half of 2019, but devoted just $148,100 (or 2.5%) of its overall spending on political contributions. Another $325,000 was spent on "digital ad buys" that correspond to a July pro-Trump digital ad campaign, according to CLC's analysis.
Taken together, the Presidential Coalition dedicated nearly 8% of overall spending to direct political activity, up from 3% in 2017 and 2018.
As before, most of the Presidential Coalition's spending went toward more fundraising, as well as rent and payroll.
What to watch: Bossie said his group has also been building up a $4.3 million war chest, and that starting after Labor Day, the Presidential Coalition will spend $3 million — or $1 million per month — over September, October and November on ads supporting the president and state and local candidates.

Worth noting: Bossie, a Fox News contributor, was totally absent on the network for nearly 3 months after our story ran. However, he did appear on the network again on July 31 to defend Trump after his tweets attacking Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings. A Fox News spokesperson told Axios that Bossie is still a contributor.

The Trump campaign told Axios that it stands by its May statement.

Go deeper:

DAVID BOSSIE

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https://www.propublica.org/article/political-fundraiser-pleads-guilty-to-fraud

In one of the first Justice Department cases of its kind, Maryland political consultant Kelley Rogers pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Tuesday for operating multiple fraudulent political action committees that raised money from donors for conservative causes but kept much of the funds for Rogers and his associates.

Rogers’ arrest and indictment took place shortly after Politico and ProPublica investigated one of Rogers’ PACs, Conservative Majority Fund, which since 2012 has raised close to $10 million — mostly from small-dollar donors, many of them elderly — while giving out just $48,400 to politicians....

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/how-fundraisers-convinced-right-wingers-to-donate-10-million-to-defeat-obama-and-then-kept-almost-all-of-it/

no lnx

How fundraisers convinced right-wingers to donate $10 million to defeat Obama — and then kept almost all of it

Written by ProPublica July 27, 2019

After recruiting thousands of donors for the American Conservative Union — the powerful organization behind the annual CPAC conference — a Republican political operative pushed the same contributors to give millions to a PAC that promised to go after then-President Barack Obama, but then steered much of their donations to himself and his partners.

The PAC, called the Conservative Majority Fund, has raised nearly $10 million since mid-2012 and continues to solicit funds to this day, primarily from thousands of steadfast contributors to conservative causes, many of them senior citizens. But it has made just $48,400 in political contributions to candidates and committees. Public records indicate its main beneficiaries are theoperative Kelley Rogers, who has a history of disputes over allegedly unethical fundraising, and one of the largest conservative fundraising companies, InfoCision Management Corp., which charged millions of dollars in fundraising fees.

The saga of how politically connected fundraisers used one of the nation’s leading conservative organizations as a springboard for fundraising that mainly benefited the fundraisers themselves sheds light on the growing problem of so-called scam PACs — organizations that take advantage of loosened campaign finance laws to reap windfalls for insiders while directing only a small portion of receipts to actual political advocacy.

Watchdogs have long complained that ethics laws fail to prevent the exploitation of donors by organizations operating with little or no oversight, and even President Donald Trump’s campaign issued a warning this year about “dishonest fundraising groups” using the president’s name to raise funds.

Rogers’ and InfoCision’s work on behalf of the ACU also shows how lax regulation allows big-name political organizations to recruit donors without identifying either the source of the calls or the ultimate beneficiaries of the donations. ACU appears to have had little control over the PAC’s operation and was not the source of its fundraising scripts.

“The individuals — or many of the individuals — who seem to be profiting off of scam PACs are the same people who also provide services to mainstream players,” said Adav Noti, a lawyer who worked for more than 10 years at the Federal Election Commission. “Obviously not every political consultant is fleecing small donors. But the consultants who are fleecing small donors, largely the way they’re able to do that is because they have experience and connections.”

Rogers and InfoCision did not respond to repeated requests for interviews — including lists of detailed questions. But the extent of their operation is detailed in a series of emails and documents obtained by ProPublica and Politico from a person with direct knowledge.In the records, Rogers and his cohorts discuss how to contour their pitches to collect the most money, betting that the most red-meat appeals would draw the most dollars.

“This makes me a little queasy … which is good,” Rogers wrote after reviewing a script for a fundraising call that questioned Obama’s citizenship. “This is approved.”

The emails raise questions about Rogers’ work ostensibly on behalf of theACU, which burst to fame in the 1970s and calls its conference “the birthplace of modern conservatism” for its role in elevating Ronald Reagan. The CPAC conference, most recently held at National Harbor, Maryland, is widely considered a crucial point of connection between GOP leadership and the grassroots activists who whip up excitement for the party’s agenda.

In 2010, the ACU enlisted Rogers to find new donors for the organization. To do so, Rogers formed a political nonprofit called the New Conservative Coalition and began soliciting money. It raised nearly $3.4 million between 2010 and mid-2012, although none of that money went to the ACU, IRS filings and records from Colorado show, because prospecting for new donors routinely consumes most or all of the money brought in.

By early 2012, the group appears to have test-marketed pitches to donors that were too extreme or embarrassing to be associated with the ACU itself. The emails reflect the insistence of then-ACU Chairman Al Cardenas, the veteran conservative lobbyist, and others in the organization that no trace of the ACU’s fingerprints be visible in the scripts given to telemarketers.

“Kelley just left me a voicemail that ACU has received a few calls in their office from people who ACU thought had received a [fundraising] call … [and] been directed to the ACU’s conservative.org website (and then called the ACU office.),” wrote one of Rogers’s colleagues. “… it may be nothing … but would you double check to make sure their [sic] in NO reference to ACU, conservative.org or Al Cardenas in any script, including the thank you call script?”

After finding references to ACU affiliates in some of the scripts, an operative asked, “I’m assuming we need ALL ACU references removed — is that right?”

“Yes … just get rid of all of them,” responded another.

At another point, Rogers’ colleagues expressed concern about Cardenas’ Hispanic heritage and the tenor of their anti-immigration message to donors. The script, drafted in January 2012, declared that undocumented immigrants “account for a large percentage of our crime — and prison costs … and take jobs away from Americans.” Those claims are not supported by evidence.

“Cardenas, the ACU Chairman, is Hispanic,” the consultant working with Rogers wrote. “In an effort to keep this script under the radar I think we should re-name it ‘Obama’s Plan.’”

In an interview, Cardenas said he didn’t recall any disagreements between ACU and InfoCision. He said ACU had been careful to run the fundraising project by its lawyers.

“The only thing I remember is making sure our executive director thought it was a good idea” to seek out new donors, Cardenas said. “Probably, the consultants got upset with the parameters that our legal counsel set.”

Asked why ACU would shield its identity when pitching donors, Cardenas said, “Using our name and my name is something we wouldn’t want to happen because a) it would hurt our own fundraising purposes, and b) we have very little control over content and we didn’t want our reputation to be tainted in any way — but I’m only guessing.”

The ACU executive director at the time, Gregg Keller, declined to comment. The ACU and current director Matt Schlapp did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including an emailed list of specific questions concerning the organization’s dealings with Rogers and InfoCision.

By the end of the summer of 2012, Rogers and InfoCision had broken with the ACU and created a new federal PAC, the Conservative Majority Fund. It began raising money using the New Conservative Coalition donor list and aggressive fundraising tactics, which painted Obama as a shady figure whose real name was “Barry Soetoro” and who “had long-term relationships with terrorists,” according to scripts for calls circulated among people working on the fundraising campaign. Neither claim is accurate. The PAC said it was hiring investigators to press the case that Obama was ineligible to be president.

That message struck gold: $2.8 million poured in from more than 30,000 donors during the five months between July and December of that year alone. To kick off its campaign, the PAC paid $371,000 in August 2012 for a television ad that briefly aired on cable television and urged viewers to call the PAC, where they would be solicited for donations. After August, it ran no television ads and made no expenditures for anything other than fundraising.

FEC records show almost all the money went for calls to donors like Mike Miller, a jeweler in Barrington, Illinois, who gave $500.

“At the time they called, it seemed like such an important thing,” Miller said in a phone interview. “I was assuming they were legitimate.” When told about the group’s lack of spending on disqualifying Obama from the ballot, he said, “If they did this, and didn’t use it for intended purposes, I want my money back.”

On the day after Obama won reelection, the PAC changed its call scripts, telling donors that Obama’s “immediate plans are to pardon the terrorists at Guantanamo, give full amnesty to illegal aliens and give the United Nations the authority to tax Americans,” according to a fundraising script in the emails. There is no evidence that any of those plans were under consideration by the Obama administration. Donors were told that the PAC had hired a team of investigators and lawyers to press for impeachment. There is no evidence in FEC records that it ever did.

The fundraising scripts included suggested responses if the prospective donors said they were unemployed, on a fixed income or had significant medical bills to pay, encouraging them to give a smaller amount. When recipients asked not to be called again, the script instructed the telemarketers to offer to place them on a “restricted list” so that they would not get more than one call every 30 days. If recipients insisted, they would be added to a no-call list.

Rogers has previously come under harsh scrutiny for raising large amounts of money but spending little on the promised advocacy. Former Virginia gubernatorial candidateKen Cuccinelli sued Rogers for his involvement in a PAC that raised money purportedly to support Cuccinelli’s bid to be governor in 2013 but did not spend any to help Cuccinelli win. The case was settled in 2015. In 2017, Rogers’ Maryland office was raided by the FBI, but no charges were brought.

Election integrity experts have warned that alleged scam PACs are siphoning tens of millions of dollars in political donations into the coffers of fundraisers each year, while misleading donors.

Lynne Archer, 72, gave the Conservative Majority Fund $3,800 between 2012 and 2018. Archer said she tries to be wary of potential scams, but the Conservative Majority Fund had always sounded “like a legitimate group” when it solicited money.

“Damn, I gave a lot to them,” said Archer, who lives in Sugar Land, Texas, and works for her husband at an automobile dealership. “I don’t like that at all.”

Noti, who used to work at the FEC, called the proliferation of scam PACs “incredibly corrosive to American democracy” because of the impact on donors like Archer — many of them elderly — who give money in good faith to political causes.

“It’s going to chase people out of the system once those donors realize their money’s been stolen,” Noti said. “They’re going to be disillusioned and disenchanted, and rightfully so.”

Both Rogers’ Annapolis, Maryland-based Strategic Campaign Group and the Akron, Ohio-based InfoCision, a direct marketing firm, were once staples of GOP fundraising. Rogers’ clients included Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran and National Security Adviser John Bolton, while InfoCision helped raise money for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Rifle Association.

When the ACU sought to expand its roster of donors, it contracted with Rogers and InfoCision to make calls to a large number of potential contributors — a time-consuming, and therefore expensive, process known as “prospecting.”[EXTRACTION?]

During the spring and summer of 2012, several employees who worked in the political division at InfoCision, along with Rogers and other consultants, began using increasingly aggressive fundraising tactics for ACU — though the organization was never supposed to be named in fundraising materials or scripts.

The scripts tapped into voter concerns about illegal immigration. One, in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign, declared that there was a “huge scandal” that the group had “recently uncovered,” in which Obama was “now planning to deliberately target 20-million poor Latino immigrants — a desperate effort to win re-election,” according to the emails.

Those pitches led to a flurry of emails discussing the nature of the appeals — and whether they might alienate Cardenas. Rogers was the main conduit for complaints, often relaying concerns from ACU leaders to the fundraisers crafting the various appeals.

Several months later Rogers proposed something else entirely: He and InfoCision would take the lists of donors they had harvested while working with ACU, split off their own fundraising operation, then open it as a PAC and raise money without ACU as a client.

“It’s becoming very apparent to me for many reasons that we are going to have to de-affiliate” the fundraising with ACU, Rogers wrote. “I am still trying to resolve issues with them but I can tell we are headed for trouble.”

Tensions between the ACU and the people operating the donor recruitment operation continued, emails among InfoCision employees indicate, because the PAC’s early fundraising pleas sometimes included references to ACU despite ACU’s wishes that they didn’t.

“We now have to eliminate ALL ACU references” in the materials for the group, wrote Erik Byers, an account executive who helped oversee the work done on behalf of ACU, to his colleagues on June 29, 2012. “Kelley got blasted by ACU.”

Soon after, in early July, Rogers and a handful of other individuals established the Conservative Majority Fund and began raising money.

Because InfoCision telemarketers (called “Communicators”) might recognize that they were reusing fundraising appeals, a company manager stressed the importance of a separate identity.

“We’re starting a new, independent PAC, with an established donor base,” Matthew Birkbeck, then a marketing executive at InfoCision, wrote. “It’s exciting, so sell it! We can’t have the Communicators talking about ACU. There are threats of lawsuits surrounding this!!!”

Calls and emails to Birkbeck were not returned.

By mid-August, Rogers wrote to the ACU that the fundraising operation with them “is completely shut down in all fronts.”

In the months that followed, the InfoCision managers created increasingly provocative call scripts focused on voter fraud, Obama’s (false) country of birth and — after his reelection — launching an impeachment drive to remove him from office.

In addition to Rogers, the InfoCision account manager Byers, a consultant and two other InfoCision employees, including Birkbeck, were involved with the Conservative Majority Fund, according to the emails. All of those people had also been involved with the previous work with the ACU, and the group worked quickly to close accounts and reassign paperwork to the new organization.

Scott B. Mackenzie, a Republican bookkeeper who serves as the treasurer for dozens of political committees, was treasurer of the group, responsible for filing its reports with the FEC.

Mackenzie did not respond to a request for comment. Byers, of InfoCision, did not respond to requests for comment.

The PAC’s executive director was Dennis Whitfield, a former deputy labor secretary during the Reagan administration. Whitfield worked as a consultant for ACU in 2012, according to the group’s website. He also worked with Rogers at Strategic Campaign Group. Whitfield’s name was used to help promote the Conservative Majority Fund, for example on an October 2012 letter about voter fraud that cautioned: “I mean, imagine how you’ll feel if Obama wins because of all this? We’re scared to death!”

Phone calls to Whitfield were not returned.

The InfoCision staff and Rogers got their first look at a fundraising script and a television ad for the new Conservative Majority Fund on July 5, just two weeks after Rogers floated the idea for opening the PAC. They described an effort to remove Obama from the ballot and raised questions about his eligibility to be president.

“We need to gather 10,000 signatures from each congressional district to have him removed from the ballot,” one script read, before callers asked people for donations. The procedure for removing candidates from the ballot varies by state, but does not require the specific goal claimed by the script. If the donor gave money using a credit card, the caller was instructed to try to upsell them: “I want to let you know that we’re developing some new TV ads about Obama’s past that are going to shock people. We need to get the ads on the air quickly, so can we count on you for an additional gift[?]”

Rogers approved both pitches, according to the emails.

Using the ACU donors and lists of conservative donors pulled from InfoCision’s collection or purchased from other vendors, [SOCIAL MEDIA HOOVER UP INFO/ADDY BIG DATABASE?] the new group raked in large amounts of money: Between 2012 and 2018, the Conservative Majority Fund disclosed raising more than $9.6 million, almost entirely from small-dollar donors. At least $9 million of that has been paid to InfoCision for expenses reported as fundraising costs. Strategic Campaign Group, where Rogers works, received an additional $229,000, while Mackenzie was paid $172,000 as the PAC’s treasurer.

In its reporting to the FEC, the Conservative Majority Fund disclosed spending $5.3 million on what it described as expressly political expenditures, but nearly all of it was on fundraising calls — placed by InfoCision — that criticized Democratic politicians, particularly Obama and Hillary Clinton. The Conservative Majority Fund produced two TV ads, but it appears to have spent little money airing them. Most of its recent activity has been phone calls and social media posts supportive of Trump, whose image figures prominently on the PAC’s website.

There’s no further evidence in records that the Conservative Majority Fund was active in the 2012 elections. Nonetheless, the group bragged in various solicitations to donors that it was taking on a range of anti-Obama organizing, which included: employing a “Truth Squad” to lobby states to remove Obama from the ballot; “hiring undercover researchers” to expose attempts by the Obama campaign to commit voter fraud; and putting “media specialists” on television and radio shows, as well as authoring newspaper and magazine articles and social media posts, “giving regular updates on Obama’s dirty tricks.”

ProPublica and Politico did not find any record of experts from the Conservative Majority Fund appearing on television or radio to discuss the election and could find no evidence from the states cited by the group — Alabama, Tennessee, Arizona and Illinois — indicating it lobbied to remove Obama from the ballot. And the Conservative Majority Fund could not have worked in states to stop “phony [voter] registrations,” which an October 2012 letter to donors said it would do. By then, the voter rolls were closed in many states and could not be changed by anyone.

Starting the day after Obama was reelected, employees at InfoCision began circulating plans for a new message for callers: a case for impeaching the president.

“Impeachment is our only option,” said a recording that InfoCision planned to play to potential donors, according to emails circulated among the operatives on Nov. 7, 2012. “And Republicans are already considering Obama investigations. As the nation’s most effective conservative group … We are launching the official ‘IMPEACH OBAMA’ campaign.”

At least from a fundraising perspective, the campaign was a success: In the first six months of 2013, FEC records show, the PAC raised an additional $1.7 million.

At least since 2015, federal regulators have been aware of complaints about the tactics used by the Conservative Majority Fund, as well as other PACs linked to Rogers and Mackenzie, the PAC’s treasurer. But the Conservative Majority Fund continued to operate with relatively little attention from authorities, a reflection of how federal laws do little to protect the public from potential scam PACs, according to watchdogs.

The FEC has twice probed the Conservative Majority Fund’s activities — but the commission, despite being the main federal regulator, is limited in what it can do. In July 2016, the FEC found the Conservative Majority Fund had misreported items on its federal disclosures during the 2013-14 election cycle. It paid a $3,500 fine.In October 2017, the FEC approved an audit covering the last six months of 2012 that found the Conservative Majority Fund had misstated its financial activity.

Both inquiries only skimmed the surface, looking at financial forms submitted to the commission.

The commission rarely chooses to launch full investigations — which allow it to ask questions, interview employees and demand documents from a group — without first having evidence of wrongdoing.

There are also holes in federal law that make it difficult for the commission to exercise meaningful oversight of groups like the Conservative Majority Fund. While the law prohibits raising campaign money while fraudulently “acting for or on behalf of any candidate or political party,” it does little to address a PAC like the Conservative Majority Fund that didn’t do this. The bar for federal law enforcement in proving a broader criminal statute like wire fraud is far higher. Last year, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York for the first time indicted two men for wire fraud who ran PACs that raised money in the name of causes such as autism awareness and helping police.

In a 2016 memo on the issue, two FEC commissioners implored their colleagues to take action against scam PACs but acknowledged that federal law gives political committees “great leeway on how they use the funds” they raise.

“The power of the Commission to directly and comprehensively protect political contributors is limited,” the two commissioners concluded.

In late 2018, the FEC formally asked Congress to take action against “fraudulent PAC practices” by some PACs.“These committees solicit contributions with promises of supporting candidates, but then disclose minimal or no candidate support activities while engaging in significant and continuous fundraising, which predominantly funds personal compensation for the committees’ organizers,” the commission wrote.

When Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general and gubernatorial candidate, sued Rogers and a PAC called Conservative StrikeForce, he said they’d used Cuccinelli’s name to raise more than $2 million, but donated just $10,000 to Cuccinelli’s campaign.

Cuccinelli settled with Rogers and Conservative StrikeForce in May 2015 for $85,000. Cuccinelli’s spokesperson did not respond to an interview request.

In 2017, the FBI raided the Annapolis office of Rogers’ consulting firm. At the time, Rogers said the FBI appeared interested in work his firm did in the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race, but the FBI did not shed any light on its actions. The pre-dawn raid was a near-unheard of occurence in the political sphere, but it didn’t result in charges being brought against Rogers or the PAC. Rogers’ firm shut down its website and closed the office in Annapolis.

InfoCision, meanwhile, paid a $250,000 settlement in 2018 for “deceptive charitable solicitation calls” in an unrelated case. InfoCision callers initially told potential donors they were not calling to solicit donations when that was not the case, according to the Federal Trade Commission. But the FTC does not have similar jurisdiction over political fundraising, highlighting that business solicitations are more highly regulated than political fundraising.

Election law experts have proposed changes that would discourage scam PACs by broadening anti-fraud provisions in federal election law or enacting an anti-self-dealing provision that prohibits PAC operators from turning an excessive profit. Smaller changes, such as expanding the requirements for PACs to disclose more information to donors who visit their websites, could also help curb the number of scam PACs operating in the political space.

“It seems that it would not be that hard and it should be something that is bipartisan, you would hope,” said Ann Ravel, former chair of the FEC.

The argument for enacting more regulation on scam PACs is “similar to why there’s oversight over nonprofits who take money from individuals in the name of good causes, and then use it to enrich themselves,” Ravel said. “It’s stealing.”

Filed under:

Politics

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/think-dishonest-politics-and-dark-money-elections-are-bad-now-court-ruling-opens-floodgates-for-scam-pacs/

ct fail?

A federal judge on Thursday struck down FEC regulations barring unauthorized political action committees from using a candidate’s name to mislead voters and attract donations, a ruling critics warned could lead to the proliferation of “scam PACs.”

Paul S. Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation with Common Cause, said the ruling “will embolden scam PACs to trade on the names of candidates to raise money for their own ends from unknowing citizens.”

“The Federal Election Commission (FEC) can and should still be enforcing the ban—and opening a rulemaking to establish new disclaimer requirements for non-candidate websites that use a candidate’s name in the URL,” Ryan added.

In a series of tweets, FEC chair Ellen Weintraub explained that political action committees are still barred from using candidates’ names in their formal titles.

But, Weintraub continued, the judge’s ruling will allow PACs to use candidates’ names in their “solicitations, other communications, and special projects.”

“This can be grossly misleading, and this is the hole scam PACs are going to drive a truck through,” Weintraub warned.

As NPR‘s Jessica Taylor reported, there have already been cases of PACs using candidates’ names to trick unwitting citizens out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.

“Earlier this week, federal prosecutors charged a California man with setting up political action committees purporting to support prominent Democrats, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, bilking donors out of more than $250,000,” Taylor wrote.

Taylor continued:

Another example, pointed out by the Center for Public Integrity’s Dave Levinthal, roped in “James Bond” actor Daniel Craig, who thought he was donating to a super PAC supporting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential bid in 2016.

The group was initially named “Ready for Bernie Sanders 2016” and “Bet on Bernie 2016,” even though they had no affiliation with Sanders, who had renounced any super PAC support. Thus, the confusion from Craig and others.

After the judge’s ruling on Thursday, said Weintraub, such scams are likely to become far more common.

“This is unfortunate,” she tweeted. “It will lead to confusion in the political marketplace. It provides a wide opening for scam PACs to exploit.”