campaign misconduct
new cat 12/16
mostly refusal to follow disclosure rules
ATI john doe?
is this some sort of proxy/ precursor, like domestic violence for mass shooter?
may also be aspect of dirty- tricks hardball win at all costs (just reading an email this am on some evil deed preceded by Does no one have winning spirit/ killer instinct to do this? rid me of this meddlesome preist?
https://theconversation.com/stolen-elections-open-wounds-that-may-never-heal-128613
==
https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/it-looks-like-kansas-kris-kobach-is-illegally-using-nonprofit-border-group-to-raise-campaign-funds/
no lnx
It looks like Kansas’ Kris Kobach is illegally using nonprofit border group to raise campaign funds
Written by Jen Hayden / Daily Kos August 2, 2019
Former (hallelujah!) Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach may have run afoul of the law in his latest bid to attain higher office. Kobach suffered a humiliating defeat in November 2018’s gubernatorial race in Kansas, losing to Democrat Laura Kelly. He’s back, and although nobody asked him to run again, with the possible exception of Trump’s white nationalist advisor Stephen Miller, he’s inserted himself as a candidate in the race for Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat after the longtime senator announced he would be retiring in 2020. You know it’s bad when Republicans are desperate to recruit someone, anyone other than Kobach to run. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is rumored to be considering it. He may want to give it more thought if federal prosecutors begin looking into Kobach’s fundraising. The Daily Beast reports Kobach sent out a fundraising email for his senate campaign to the nonprofit group We Build The Wall. Kobach sits on the board of the group and acts as its legal counsel.
“As a donor to WeBuildTheWall, I humbly ask you to support my run for the Senate,” Kobach’s email pleaded. The email provided links to the campaign’s official fundraising page and asked for “a financial contribution of $50, $100, $250, $500, or any amount up to the maximum of $2,800 per individual.”
The solicitation likely violated federal campaign finance laws, according to Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at the group Common Cause
“At a minimum, this Kobach for Senate fundraising solicitation email appears to violate the ‘paid for by’ disclaimer requirement” for official campaign communications, Ryan said in an email, referencing the requirement that campaigns clearly disclose the financial sponsors—generally the campaigns themselves—behind official political communications.
The We Build The Wall organization has faced significant legal challenges. Its goal is to use private funds to build a wall along the southern border. Its fundraiser for the purpose went viral among MAGA types, and it raised $22 million. Since then, it claims to have built a half-mile of border wall on private land in New Mexico, but it’s since gotten a cease-and-desist letter from the city because the wall violates city code.
The barrier also surpasses the city ordinance’s maximum allowed height of six feet, Perea added, meaning [fundraiser Brian] Kolfage’s wall is “not in compliance.”
City officials issued a cease-and-desist order Tuesday as lawmakers condemned construction efforts. In a statement to the Silver City Sun News, El-Paso-based Democrat Rep. Veronica Escobar took particular aim at Kobach and Bannon.
“It’s deeply disturbing when outsiders, like Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon, come in and use our community and people as a backdrop to further their racist agenda,” Escobar said. “It’s even more disturbing that a business in our community is furthering this xenophobic narrative. While this wall may be necessary fuel for the president’s political campaign, it will not prevent people from seeking asylum.”
In neighboring Missouri, former Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted for similar use of an email list from a nonprofit organization he ran.
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted Friday on suspicion of stealing an electronic list of donors to the pro-veterans charity he founded in order to raise money for his political career, prosecutors say.
The new charge against the Republican governor comes at the tail end of the three-year statute of limitations, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said in a news release.
According to a probable cause statement, Greitens instructed the April 22, 2015, disclosure of a donor list owned by the Mission Continues, a nonprofit Greitens founded, without the charity’s permission.
That charge was dismissed when Greitens resigned. He also stood accused of blackmailing a woman he’d had an affair with after he took nude photos of her without her permission and threatened to release them publicly if she ever told anyone of the affair.
Needless to say, prosecutors should be looking at Kobach’s fundraising through the nonprofit. Based on the reporting from the Daily Beast, it seems clear that the blurring of the lines between Kobach’s campaign and the nonprofit are at a minimum worth more scrutiny, possibly rising to the level of a felony.
“You’ll sometimes see a campaign paying to rent a c4’s list, but that’s clearly not what’s happening here,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of federal reforms at the Campaign Legal Center. “[T]he content of the message describing a We Build the Wall event and the logo at top make clear it is an official communication from the c4 itself.”
In the email, Kobach even compares his role as the nonprofit’s top lawyer to the one he hopes to play in the upper chamber of America’s legislature, writing, “I’m [sic] want to represent you in the United States States [sic] the same way I’m going to continue to represent WeBuildTheWall as General Counsel.”
Kansans were already tired of Kobach embarrassing the state with one legal misfire after another. As secretary of state, Kobach worked tirelessly to make sure as many people as possible lost the right to vote. He used his Crosscheck voter system, which flagged allegedly questionable voter registrations, to systematically kick voters off the voter rolls by demanding they present proof of citizenship, voters who happened to have names like Garcia and Jackson.
He also tried to create a two-tier voting system, one that would allow people to vote in federal elections (because of the constitutional right to vote), but not in state elections if they didn’t jump through his citizenship hoops. He was essentially laughed out of court. Again. His performance in court defending these laws was so bad, and his paperwork filled with so many errors, that a federal judge ordered Kobach to take remedial legal classes.
He is also the man who was the architect of the most racist law in modern American history, Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which allowed law enforcement officers to stop anyone they pleased to demand citizenship paperwork on the spot and indefinitely detain them if they didn’t carry their birth certificate or citizenship paperwork with them. Nicknamed “Papers Please,” the law meant that officers could detain an entire family. Kobach hoped to take it nationwide. Indeed, it does seem similar to what ICE and Trump are now doing, doesn’t it?
And with all of that, please enjoy this just-released video from Kris Kobach in which he spends five full minutes waving around an empty coffee mug while helpfully explaining that all the articles about him being a super-duper racist are wrong.
==
==
The Federal Election Commission on Tuesday sent its harshest letter yet to Donald Trump’s campaign committee, outlining violations that include accepting large donations from anonymous sources, taking contributions above the legal limits, failing to file reports of last-minute contributions and more.
It wasn’t the first such admonishment of the Trump campaign by the agency; he has been warned about similar matters in the past. This letter refers to Trump’s campaign finance report covering the period from Oct. 20-Nov. 28, 2016.
Both of Trump’s joint fundraising committees were called out by the FEC for some of the same kinds of transgressions in separate letters.
Besides that, Trump’s campaign, which reported raising $328 million for the 2016 election (including $66 million from Trump himself) has been noting refunds to donors who give more than is permissible in an unusual way that inflates his actual fundraising total.
Thanks for your donation, Anonymous D Mr. H27!
Anonymous donations of more than $50 are prohibited. Trump’s joint fundraising committee with the RNC, Trump Make America Great Again Committee, accepted more than $16,000 in such contributions, according to the letter. A Center for Responsive Politics analysis of the filing found 30 pages of donations from donors named “Refused, Refused.” (As in first name: Refused; last name: Refused.)
The letter doesn’t make clear how much of that anonymous money rolled into Trump’s campaign, but the Center for Responsive Politics found $1,300 transferred from the MAGA joint fundraiser coming from a donor literally named “Anonymous.” (Check out page 5,477 to see for yourself.)
We at the Center for Responsive Politics conducted our own analysis, examining contributions to the president-elect for the entire election cycle, pulling out any name that included a number, symbol or email address, as well as names that included the word “Anonymous” or “Refused.” Using these parameters, we found $22,500 through Nov. 28 from these kinds of questionable sources. Some of these doting donors include Anonymous D Mr H27, Nancy MO5 and Anon Mr H40.
Trump’s campaign accepted a $300 donation from Anonymous D Mr H27.
Interestingly, Anonymous D Mr. H27 and Anon Mr. H40 share an address: 725 Fifth Avenue, or Trump Tower.
Using this same analysis with Trump Make America Great Again Committee, we found about $19,000 in such strange donor names, mostly from our friend Mr. Refused.
The Trump campaign and the JFC’s must respond to the FEC by Valentine’s Day (probably not with a box of chocolates), and must make refunds or other adjustments within 60 days of receiving the agency’s letter.
The FEC also devoted more than 240 pages of its missive to Trump to pointing out contributions over the legal limit, $2,700 for individuals and $5,000 for PACs per election. Last November, the FEC had similarly identified 47 pages in excessive payments.
That’s not an uncommon mistake; campaigns on both sides this year have had to make refunds to overzealous givers. Last April, the FEC similarly scolded Bernie Sanders with a 645-page letter detailing more than 1,500 questionable donations.
What is unusual is how Trump’s campaign has been dealing with over-the-limit donations once it is aware of them. The right way: If someone gives a campaign $2,950 for the general election, the excess $250 should be reported as a negative amount, with a minus sign, so the amount is subtracted when the campaign’s contributions are tallied.
Here’s what it should look like, from Ted Cruz’s Febrary 2016 filing.
In Trump’s FEC report covering the first 19 days of October, he simply listed the full amount given by a donor and put a note next to it saying “excess to be refunded.” The excess — in the case below, $4,300 ($7,000 minus $2,700) — isn’t subtracted in the tally; that would only happen if the excess amount was listed, with a minus sign in front of it. Thus the campaign’s total receipts are inflated by the amounts that are supposed to be subtracted.
Here’s what Trump’s reporting looks like.
In an amended filing for the same period, Trump used the same method, but included the date when the campaign gave the refund back, such as “excess chargeback on 12/1” above the positive amount. But without a negative number being listed, the campaign gets credit for the full amount.
His attempt to fix it wasn’t much better. Trump’s campaign did report the negative number, as it should, but instead of just stopping there, like the rules say, it added in the original too-big contribution as well.
It’s impossible to determine the amount by which Trump’s totals were inflated without going through every report and doing the math.
“This skewing of the numbers shows the committee’s accountants are quite inexperienced and not all that interested in ensuring adequate disclosure is going on,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen.
In addition, in the closing days of the campaign, Trump’s committee received contributions from 56 limited liability corporations, or LLCs. Those can be legal, depending on whether their owners treat them as partnerships or corporations for tax purposes. The FEC wants the campaign to clarify their status.
And the campaign appears to have accepted contributions from corporations, which is clearly verboten; those included Buch’s Truck Stop, Eklessia Long Island Center Ministries, Klae Construction Inc. and Van’s Deer Processing.
Researchers Alex Baumgart and Douglas Weber contributed to this report.
:{
Categories: joint fundraising committees Outside Money Politicians & Elections Presidential Presidential Election
Tags: anonymous contributions, Ashley Balcerzak, b3, Donald Trump, excessive contributions, fec, Federal Election Commission}: