Long before revelations of Hillary Clinton and the DNC paying millions to Fusion GPS for the infamous and almost entirely fabricated Trump dossier, Clinton’s ties to Correct the Record broke campaign finance laws. On October 6, 2016 the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center demanded the Federal Election Commission investigate Clinton’s ties to David Brock’s Correct the Record. The watchdog filed a complaint to the FEC since “Correct the Record is effectively an arm of the Clinton campaign” and “million-dollar-plus contributions to the super PAC are indistinguishable from contributions directly to Clinton – and pose the same risk of corruption.” In addition to being viewed as an “arm of the Clinton campaign,” Correct the Record was described as a “$6 million professional opposition research” operation.
In addition to Correct the Record, Clinton broke campaign finance laws by pocketing millions allotted for other Democratic candidates. Bernie Sanders and his campaign complained of the overt collusion between the DNC and Clinton regarding fundraising. POLITICO reported “state parties kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised through the arrangement,” with almost all the money going to Clinton. In fact, the Hillary Victory Fund is actually a “joint account” between the DNC and Clinton, with donations reaching $350,000 per donor in many instances.
The Intercept reported close coordination between Clinton’s campaign and Super PACs in addition to Correct the Record, and this coordination is documented in WikiLeaks emails. According to Lee Fang and Andrew Perez, “While Correct the Record has argued it is exempt from FEC rules, Clinton herself has said she does not work with Priorities USA Action.” However, emails show Clinton and her campaign did work closely with one of her largest Super PACs. In addition, The Hill’s Harper Neidig and Johnathan Swan reported that Priorities USA accepted $200,000 in banned donations:
A super-PAC backing Hillary Clinton has accepted $200,000 in donations from a company holding multiple contracts with the federal government — despite a ban on such contributions.
Boston-based Suffolk Construction made two contributions of $100,000 to Priorities USA, which is backing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
…Priorities USA stipulates on its website that donors can’t be federal contractors. Yet a spokesman for the super-PAC declined to comment in response to a question about whether the donations from Suffolk would be returned.
Unfortunately for Clinton, she can’t distance herself from Priorities USA. John Podesta is being paid by a major donor to the Super PAC and Clinton was aware of the arrangement. John Podesta signed a $7,000 per month contract with the foundation of a Democratic donor who donated millions to Priorities USA. Podesta wrote in a WikiLeaks email that the donor was “ready to do the 2016 max early in the new year” and that he “is also prepared to double down on his Priorities support as well.”
Even before Fusion GPS, Correct the Record and Priorities USA served as arms of the Clinton campaign, which is an overt violation of campaign finance laws. Clinton’s campaign chairman was being paid by a major Democratic donor linked to Priorities USA. As for the DNC, it had a joint account with the Clinton campaign and allowed Clinton to pocket almost all the money (around $82 million at one point) raised for down-ticket Democrats.
Then add Fusion GPS to Correct the Record and Priorities USA, as well as the DNC in terms of overt collusion between organizations meant to be separated by a wall of campaign finance laws. In this case, the National Reviews’ Andrew McCarthy explains how Clinton’s preferred law firm funded both Fusion GPS and CrowdStrike, merging multiple scandals into one:
In any event, you can see the problem here for Democrats who, for a year, have chanted the “Trump campaign collusion with Russia” mantra. Strip away the buffers (i.e., Steele and Perkins Coie) and the dossier is an exercise in Clinton-campaign collusion with Kremlin-connected sources to produce information that would cripple the Trump campaign and, failing that, undermine the Trump presidency.
Perkins Coie not only retained Fusion GPS, but also CrowdStrike, after the FBI was denied access to DNC servers. Now, the Campaign Legal Center filed yet another FEC complaint regarding Hillary for America failing to disclose millions in funding for opposition research. The complaint states Clinton “failed to accurately disclose the purpose and recipient of payments for the dossier of research alleging connections between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia.”
Since FEC filings simply show $12 million to Perkins Coie, without mentioning funding of the Trump dossier or Fusion GPS, House Republicans and Congressman Trey Gowdy have another Clinton scandal; this time without Comey protecting President Obama’s Secretary of State. While James Comey claimed Clinton didn’t intentionally transfer Top Secret intelligence onto a once unencrypted private server, it’s difficult to hide behind intent with campaign finance laws. I explain in my latest book, Debunking the Trump Russia Myth, that accusations of Russian collusion are meant to overshadow Clinton’s role in the sale of uranium to Russia, in addition to Bill Clinton meeting Putin and other ties to the Kremlin. The Fusion GPS dossier is just one part of a smokescreen meant to hide the fact President Obama, and Clinton, looked the other way as Uranium One (using the export licenses of trucking companies) shipped yellow cake uranium out of the country. Now Trey Gowdy and House Republicans can investigate a presidential campaign utilizing a law firm to launder millions for research derived from Russian sources. Gowdy’s latest appearance of FOX showed that unlike the email scandal, which is ongoing, he’s not going to let “intent” shield Clinton from this latest violation of laws.
H. A. Goodman is the author of BUT HER TOP SECRET EMAILS and DEBUNKING THE TRUMP RUSSIA MYTH and has been published in The Huffington Post, The Hill, Salon and other publications. He’s also appeared on CNN, MSNBC and RT numerous times discussing various political topics.
Views expressed in op-eds are not the views of The Daily Caller.
