Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook was only too pleased after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits on individual donations to political candidates, parties, and political action committees (PACs), according to new emails released by WikiLeaks in connection with its dump of campaign chairman John Podesta’s server.
“Gotta have the state parties in the joint — so much money on the table,” he wrote to colleagues April 3, 2014, shortly after the Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC. McCutcheon is the spawn of the controversial Citizens United ruling, which authorized independent political expenditures by corporations or labor unions. Clinton denounces the decision regularly and says she will apply Citizens United as a litmus test against her judicial nominees. (RELATED: Email Suggests Biden Aide Sabotaged His Presidential Aspirations To Help Hillary)
Mook’s message was written in response to an explanation of the ruling from Eric Kleinfeld, a partner at Utrecht, Kleinfeld, Fiori, Partners. Though the ruling left maximum contribution limits to individual candidates and organizations in place, aggregate limits on giving were struck down. The decision empowered the party and campaign apparatus to raise vast sums, as Kleinfeld explains. He writes:
“Parties will be able to raise more federal funds. In the past, donors had to choose between the DNC, DSCC and DCCC (and similarly for their Republican counterparts), because the aggregate overall limit of $74,600 did not leave enough max-out room for three contributions of $32,400 each. Now donors can max out to each committee if they wish, as well as to as many of the state parties as they desire.”
“Parties will be able to hold joint fundraising events among the three national party committees and all of the state party committees and ask the wealthiest and willing donors to max out, or at least to contribute as much as possible. Theoretically, the joint fundraiser could ask a donor to max out at $607,200 consisting of $32,400 for three party committees, and $10,000 to fifty state parties plus DC (or double that at $1,214,000 for spouses).”
U.S. intelligence officials definitively link WikiLeaks to actors near the Russian government. They say the Podesta hack is likely part of a scheme to interfere in the presidential election.
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