FEC Complaint Against Hillary Clinton: It's Illegal To Deliberately Disguise the Purpose of Your Payments to a Shady Oppo Firm

I linked this yesterday, but Sexton put up his piece and it's worth checking out.

This is part of what he meant when he told me "You have to read the complaint."

The Commission has not always required committees to report the identity of subcontractors whom itemized contractors hire, as long as the stated purpose of the payment to the contractor reflected the "actual purpose" of the subsequent payment to the subcontractor, and the contractor receiving the disbursement has an "arms-length" relationship with the committee making the disbursement. See Advisory Opinion 1983-25 (Mondale) at 3.

That is not the case here. The stated purpose of the disbursements to Perkins Coie ("Legal Services" or "Legal and Compliance Consulting") did not reflect the “actual purpose” of how the disbursement was intended to be used in hiring Fusion GPS as a subcontractor.

So it's the rule that you don't necessarily have to note each subcontractor you pay, but you do have to report to the FEC the purpose of those payments, and at least part of the $12 million Hillary and the DNC paid to this law firm was not for "legal services," but a pass-through payment to FusionGPS for smear files.

I don't see any wiggle room here, just as Sexton promised. In fact, Lawnews -- the site breaking this story -- doesn't see any wiggle room either.

Lawnews speaks of "increased fines" if the FEC finds she concealed the purpose of these payments intentionally, which, of course, is the whole point of laundering them through the lawyer.

But it may get a little worse than that, too:

Baran added that he believes the Clinton campaign could be in trouble for not accurately disclosing its payments to the law firm.

"The committees spent money to hire an opposition research firm," he said. "However, there is no payment that describes having done so. The law requires such disclosure on reports filed with the FEC."

Baran points to the Justice Department's indictment this week of two campaign staffers for Rep. Bob Brady, D-Pa., for misreporting campaign payments allegedly used to pay off a competing candidate.

"Isn't that what happened with the hiding of dossier expenses?" Baran asked.

This legal jeopardy might be, but definitely is, why Hillary Clinton is now resorting to the Barack Obama Special Defense, "I just found out about this when you did, from the papers this morning:"

Yeah. She's been pushing this narrative since the campaign, and decided to push it harder 24 hours after she lost the election, but she didn't know nothin' 'bout no payments to Fusion for this.

Right.

And she didn't know she billed hours for Whitewater, either, because she only knew the project by its three letter billing code.

Lock.

Her.

Up.

I don't want to be vindictive but that's a lie, I totally want to be vindictive. This gangster has been breaking every law known to God and man for 40 or 50 years; it's time for her to do the time.

And just for additional vindictiveness, wish the Birthday Girl congratulations on her loss!

Yes, today is her birthday. She's one hundred and sixty seven years young.

posted by Ace at 12:39 PM

| Access Comments