Well, what a fucking surprise.Washington, DC – US Senate Republicans have blocked a bill that aimed to combat “dark money” in United States elections by making it mandatory for political organisations to disclose big donors.
The so-called Disclose Act, which was endorsed by President Joe Biden earlier this week, failed to get the support of any Republicans in a procedural vote on Thursday.
alJazeera
I have a feeling I'll be updating this post with reactions, so you might want to check back.Regarding [Missouri GOP Senator Roy] Blunt, Manchin appears to be suggesting — without, perhaps, quite explicitly saying so — that the wealthy executives on the call could dangle future financial opportunities in front of the outgoing senator while lobbying him to change his vote. Senate ethics rules forbid future job negotiations if they create a conflict of interest or present even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Manchin, notably, doesn’t suggest that the donors discuss a job, but rather says that people who Blunt may later be working with would be likely to have significant influence, reflective of the way future job prospects can shape the legislative process even when unspoken.
The Intercept
Hard to have any sympathy for the GOP.Just in the past few weeks, Trump declared at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the “only” way to give to Trump-aligned candidates was through Save America, his leadership political action committee, circumventing the party campaign arms devoted to electing Republicans. He has criticized the party for how it spends donor money, and his attorneys have sent cease-and-desist letters to GOP committees demanding they stop using his name in fundraising appeals.
In case his message wasn’t clear enough, Trump followed up this week by proclaiming that “no more money” should be given to “RINOS” — Republicans in Name Only. On Tuesday, he said in another statement that sending cash to his PAC would be "doing it right."
The offensive underscores Trump’s determination to maintain his hold over the GOP, even out of the White House. By urging givers to route [...] money through his political vehicle, the former president is attempting to monopolize the Republican Party donor base — and bend the GOP to his will by depriving it of cash.
Politico
Trump wants to line his pockets and destroy people who don't bow down. That's what Trump wants. Tim O'Brien, the biographer who spent months with Trump and probably knows him better than anyone, says Trump only has two modes: self-aggrandizement and self-protection. I think that's probably right.“Everyone else is cashing in on his popularity with the base, and he wants to control that money. Trump wants to have influence, and one of the greatest ways to have influence is to control the cash,” said Mike DuHaime, a former Republican National Committee political director.
Which is why he's telling people to give their money to his PAC instead.The RNC, which has the closest connection to Trump of any official party committee, has rejected the cease-and-desist demand, arguing that since Trump is a public figure it has every right to fundraise off his name.
Good luck with that. He's not interested in doing anything that isn't either self-aggrandizing or self-protecting. He doesn't see any "fellow" Republicans. He sees worshippers and enemies.Tony Fabrizio, the chief pollster on Trump’s 2020 campaign, recently conducted a survey of more than 1,200 GOP voters which concluded that a majority believed the party should “continue to be led by Trump.”
“This data suggests that any party committee leader that wants to play chicken with Trump very likely would end up as political roadkill,” Fabrizio said.
[...]
Top Republicans say they are determined to extinguish whatever tensions exist between the former president and the party’s campaign apparatus and stress that they have been working to get Trump focused on defeating Democrats rather than exacting revenge on fellow Republicans.
Way to suck up, Ronna. Maybe he'll choose you as his running mate in 2024.[I]t’s not the first time that there’s been tension between Trump and party leaders over fundraising. Top Senate Republican officials complained ahead of the 2020 election that the former president wasn’t doing enough to financially help them. Trump also frustrated party officials by sending out fundraising appeals focused on the January Georgia runoff elections, which directed proceeds toward Trump’s PAC rather than the GOP candidates, who were narrowly defeated.
[...]
During a Tuesday appearance on Newsmax, [Ronna] McDaniel dismissed talk of tensions with Trump, calling him “the most supportive president of the RNC, I think, in history. The things that he did when I was chair while he was in the White House, and the things he continues to do to support the party — we've never seen anything like it.”
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, which never received a cent from the former president, moved an estimated $2.8 million of donor money into the Trump Organization—including at least $81,000 since Trump lost the election.
In addition, one of the campaign’s joint-fundraising committees, which collects money in partnership with the Republican Party, shifted about $4.3 million of donor money into Trump’s business from January 20, 2017, to December 31, 2020—at least $331,000 of which came after the election.
The money covered the cost of rent, airfare, lodging and other expenses. All the payments are laid out in filings the campaign submitted to the Federal Election Commission. Representatives for the Trump Organization, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Forbes
You don't understand...the charity is for Trump.Allies of Donald Trump have begun holding events in black communities where organizers lavish praise on the president as they hand out tens of thousands of dollars to lucky attendees.
The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.
[...]
[T]he group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.
Politico
No doubt.Asked about the legality of the giveaways in a brief phone interview, the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s CEO, Darrell Scott, said that most gifts were between $300 and $500, and that the group mandates that anyone who receives over $600 fills out a W-9 form in order to ensure compliance with tax law. He did not respond to follow-up questions about how the giveaways were structured and whether they met the legal standard for a charitable act.
Scott declined to name the donors funding the effort. "I'd rather not,” he said. “They prefer to remain anonymous."
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Scott, a Cleveland-based pastor, has been one of Trump’s closest and most prominent black supporters. He struck up a relationship with the real estate mogul in the years before Trump’s presidential run, and — along with Trump’s former lieutenant Michael Cohen — co-founded the National Diversity Coalition for Trump to promote that run.
For one thing, the cities should sue.These are dark times at the Federal Election Commission, which has now gone two months without enough commissioners to enforce federal campaign finance laws.
That’s because U.S. senators and President Donald Trump have failed to strike an agreement to fill any of three vacancies on the six-member commission that needs a quorum of at least four warm bodies to conduct most any high-level business.
[...]
"The situation encourages chaos, and it encourages corruption,” said former Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.
[...]
Since Sept. 1, the FEC has canceled four of its public meetings. That’s on top of three public meetings the agency canceled earlier this year, including two in January because of the partial federal government shutdown.
[...]
Trump’s re-election campaign has repeatedly refused to pay public safety bills sent by the municipal governments of cities that have hosted the president’s campaign rallies. While debate rages over whether the campaign is legally obligated to pay them, federal law appears quite clear that it should at least be reporting these bills as “disputed debt” on its periodic campaign finance disclosures.
On Oct. 28, Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., sent a letter to the FEC demanding the agency open an investigation into Trump’s campaign for failing to disclose disputed debts. So long as the FEC lacks a quorum of commissioners, agency staff can begin work on such an investigation but commissioners themselves can’t take votes and finish it.
[...]
“It’s a cheap stunt. Horrendous,” the congressman said. “Trump could pay. His campaign has lots of money. These cities should not be taken for granted. Cities are grasping for every dollar for their budgets.”
Public Integrity
Perfect timing.As of May 1, the FEC was grappling with a backlog of 289 cases on its enforcement docket. Of those, several dozen contained elements that already had surpassed a five-year statute of limitations or would by May 1, 2020.
[...]
Democratic presidential candidate Steve Bullock, the governor of Montana and an outspoken campaign finance reformer, wants access to public presidential matching funds — an increasingly obsolete reserve nevertheless flush with cash (more than $393 million as of June 30) and still available to White House hopefuls who agree to certain fundraising limits.
One problem: the FEC must vote on candidates’ requests to access these matching funds. No commissioner quorum? No vote.
[...]
And numerous cases are fated, in part or in full, to surpass the statute of limitations — and therefore, expire, without justice being served.
[...]
Several of the cases on which the FEC hasn’t acted involve America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC mired in the Ukraine scandal congressional Democrats are investigating as part of their Trump impeachment inquiry.
[...]
No enforcement of campaign finance disclosure laws could mean illegal, undisclosed and even foreign money seeping into Election 2020, she said.
Getting serious.[A] subpoena to Steven Fruman is the latest indication of prosecutors' actions since the rushed arrest two weeks ago of his brother, Igor Fruman, and another defendant, Lev Parnas, at a Washington-area airport. Since then, investigators have doled out multiple subpoenas and conducted several property searches, in one case blowing the door off a safe to access the contents, sources tell CNN.
CNN
Then I'm guessing they're looking for any link in the company's campaign finance ventures.Federal prosecutors told a judge this week that they are sifting through data from more than 50 bank accounts. In addition, they've put a filter team in place as they examine communications obtained via search warrant and subpoena, sensitive to material that could be subject to attorney-client privilege because Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, counted Parnas as a client. A filter team is a separate set of prosecutors who are assigned to examine evidence and set aside material that is privileged.
[...]
Igor Fruman, Parnas and their two co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty in the case alleging they funneled foreign donations into US elections.
It's not clear why prosecutors are interested in Steven Fruman, or what specifically agents sought from the safe. Steven Fruman is listed in US Security and Exchange Commission filings as the vice president of FD Import & Export, the same company his brother ran.
They'll get to him.Igor Fruman also appeared to use the address of a property in Woodmere, New York, that belongs to his brother when making certain political donations, according to Federal Election Commission and other public records.
[...]
[P]rosecutors are also investigating Giuliani's Ukranian business dealings, CNN has reported. Parnas and Igor Fruman for months have aided Giuliani in what he has described as his effort to unearth damaging information about his client Trump's political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, whose son was on the board of a Ukranian energy company.
In recent days, Giuliani has been seeking a criminal-defense attorney, CNN has reported. He says he has not been contacted by the FBI or by New York federal prosecutors.
Think about it for a second, Berit. I think you DO understand the rationale.Weeks before the whistleblower's complaint became public, the CIA's top lawyer made what she considered to be a criminal referral to the Justice Department about the whistleblower's allegations that President Donald Trump abused his office in pressuring the Ukrainian president, U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News.
The move by the CIA's general counsel, Trump appointee Courtney Simmons Elwood, meant she and other senior officials had concluded a potential crime had been committed, raising more questions about why the Justice Department later declined to open an investigation.
The phone call that Elwood considered to be a criminal referral is in addition to the referral later received as a letter from the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community regarding the whistleblower complaint.
Justice Department officials said they were unclear whether Elwood was making a criminal referral and followed up with her later to seek clarification but she remained vague.
[...]
[I]t has not been [previously] reported that the CIA's top lawyer intended her call to be a criminal referral about the president's conduct, acting under rules set forth in a memo governing how intelligence agencies should report allegations of federal crimes.
The fact that she and other top Trump administration political appointees saw potential misconduct in the whistleblower's early account of alleged presidential abuses puts a new spotlight on the Justice Department's later decision to decline to open a criminal investigation — a decision that the Justice Department said publicly was based purely on an analysis of whether the president committed a campaign finance law violation.
"They didn't do any of the sort of bread-and-butter type investigatory steps that would flush out what potential crimes may have been committed," said Berit Berger, a former federal prosecutor who heads the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School. "I don't understand the rationale for that and it's just so contrary to how normal prosecutors work. We have started investigations on far less."
NBC
How is that vague?On Aug. 14, [Elwood] participated in a conference call with the top national security lawyer at the White House and the chief of the Justice Department's National Security Division.
On that call, Elwood and John Eisenberg, the top legal adviser to the White House National Security Council, told the top Justice Department national security lawyer, John Demers, that the allegations merited examination by the DOJ, officials said.
So...it's not vague, it's just not written down? Is that a requirement?According to the officials, Elwood was acting under rules that a report must occur if there is a reasonable basis to the allegations, defined as "facts and circumstances…that would cause a person of reasonable caution to believe that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed."
A Justice Department official said Attorney General William Barr was made aware of the conversation with Elwood and Eisenberg, and their concerns about the president's behavior, in the days that followed.
Justice Department officials now say they didn't consider the phone conversation a formal criminal referral because it was not in written form.
Seriously? Why would he ask for it if it had no value to him?According to the officials, Elwood was acting under rules that a report must occur if there is a reasonable basis to the allegations, defined as "facts and circumstances…that would cause a person of reasonable caution to believe that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed."
[...]
Justice Department officials said they decided there was no criminal case after determining that Trump didn't violate campaign finance law by asking the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival, because such a request did not meet the test for a "thing of value" under the law.
There IS that.Former federal prosecutors contend that the conduct could have fit other criminal statutes, including those involving extortion, bribery, conflict of interest or fraud, that might apply to the president or those close to him.
Add Benczkowski's name to the conspirator's list. We've heard of Mr. B before, a couple of times, and it wasn't good then.Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told NBC News that the decision not to open an investigation was made by the head of the criminal division, Brian Benczkowski, in consultation with career lawyers at the public integrity section. She and other officials declined to say whether anyone dissented.
And that's only the monetary value."They are not by any stretch of the imagination limited to the referral," Chuck Rosenberg, an NBC News contributor and a former U.S. attorney, said. "They have the authority — in fact, they have the obligation — to look more deeply and more broadly and bring whatever charges are appropriate."
Berger added, "When you get a criminal referral, you don't go into it saying, 'This is the criminal violation and now I'm going to see if the facts prove it.' You start with the facts and the evidence and then you see what potential crimes those facts support. It seems backwards to say, 'We are going to look at this just as a campaign finance violation and oops, we don't see it — case closed.'"
[...]
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribery of foreign officials, may also have been implicated, she said.
[...]
Common Cause has filed a complaint with the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission accusing Trump of violating campaign law.
It wouldn't have been difficult for the government to determine how much money Ukraine would have spent in an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, he said,
"That would give them a dollar amount to show that Trump solicited 'something of value,'" Ryan said.
On Thursday, in New York, the FBI unsealed a treasure trove of documents related to its investigation of how the president* and Cohen bought off Stormy Daniels in the middle of a presidential campaign. The reason the FBI could do this is because the actual investigation has been brought to an abrupt end. However, there is no question now that the FBI believed that the President* of the United States was involved in paying off a former mistress and, very likely, a lot of people in his inner circle have been lying about it in a variety of law-enforcement forums ever since.
Charles P Pierce
Yeah, I know. You're shocked.Newly released court documents show Michael Cohen kept his boss in the know as he hammered out a deal with Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign.
Politico
And, on the orders of Trump, Hope Hicks has refused to testify before Congress.From start to finish, Trump was in regular contact with his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, who arranged the payment. In October, Trump was brought in on a conference call with his longtime communications adviser, Hope Hicks, to discuss efforts to purchase and kill Daniels’ story. Over the coming weeks, Trump had numerous phone calls with Cohen as he went back and forth with Daniels’ attorney. And days before the November election, after The Wall Street Journal published a story detailing a similar hush-payment Cohen also made during the campaign to Playboy model Karen McDougal, Cohen texted “he’s pissed,” an apparent reference to Trump.
And Trump is president!The newly unredacted portions of the applications [for search warrants] show the FBI special agents detailing how the hush-money agreement was made — and how Cohen appeared to keep Trump in the know about the deal every step of the way. Cohen is now serving three years in prison for a series of campaign finance, tax fraud and lying charges.
In case you were wondering why Hope Hicks had to resign.Among the items also released on Thursday is a letter sent earlier this week by Audrey Strauss, the lead U.S. attorney in New York on the Cohen case, notifying the judge that the government’s probe had concluded into who else might be criminally liable for the campaign finance violations to which the former Trump campaign lawyer has already pleaded guilty, as well as whether anyone else gave false statements or obstructed justice.
While Strauss made no mention of any new charges, legal experts told POLITICO on Wednesday that the government’s confirmation that this portion of its investigation is over suggests no one else from the Trump Organization faces legal liability.
[...]
On Oct. 8, 2016, the day the [Access Hollywood] tape was released, Hicks, then the Trump campaign press secretary, called Cohen. Sixteen seconds later, Trump himself was dialed into the call, which continued for over four minutes. It was the first call Cohen had received or made to Hicks in at least several weeks, and Cohen and Trump had spoken only about once a month prior to that, according to the FBI. Cohen and Hicks spoke again for about two minutes after the call with Trump ended.
She should be sitting beside Cohen in jail. Along with the Criminal in Chief.During this period, Cohen connected with Trump several times. Cohen was particularly frantic on Oct. 17, when he incorporated an LLC called Essential Consultants in Delaware to funnel the money to Daniels. It’s also when Davidson threatened to cancel the deal by the end of the day if Cohen didn’t pay up.
[...]
Daniels didn’t end up going public that day, and the talks picked up again on Oct. 25. On Oct. 26, Trump and Cohen spoke twice in the morning, according to the search warrant. Less than 30 minutes later, Cohen began working to open an account within Essential Consultants. By the end of the next day, Cohen’s Essential Consultants had wired Daniels the $130,000. Cohen used a home equity line of credit to pay it, according to the document.
[...]
[O]n Nov. 4, 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported that the National Enquirer had also paid [Karen] McDougal, the Playboy model, $150,000 to bury her story about an alleged affair with Trump. The payment was made under the guise of McDougal being a “columnist” for the Enquirer.
[...]
After that Journal story was published, Cohen, Hicks, Davidson, Howard and AMI CEO David Pecker “spoke frequently” about the need to keep both the Daniels and McDougal stories from gaining national attention, according to one of the agent’s reviews of phone and email records.
[...]
The morning after the story was published, Cohen seemed optimistic. “So far I see only 6 stories. Getting little to no traction,” he texted Hicks. “Same,” she responded. “Keep praying!! It’s working!”
Popcorn will be flying off the grocery shelves.NBC News national security correspondent Ken Dilanian told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Cohen has a plan to address [the fact that he lied to the committees in previous testimony.]
“He’s expected to address, first of all, his lies to those (congressional) committees on the timing of the Trump Tower and Moscow deal, the fact that it was going on much longer than he admitted in public and much longer than Donald Trump acknowledged,” Dilanian said.
Cohen’s plea agreement details the president’s lies about his dealings with Russia during the 2016 campaign, but he’s not allowed to address those issues before Congress because special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is still pending.
[...]
“While he’s not allowed to talk about the Russia investigation when he appears before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, he’s going to talk about those hush money payments to women.”
The committee was also expected to question Cohen about Trump’s compliance with campaign finance and tax laws, potential conflicts of interest with his family business, Trump Organization business practices.
“I’m told Cohen has been prepping with this for a long time, and he knows he’s got credibility issues, so he’s coming with documents,” Dilanian said, “and he’s got very detailed, sordid and, what (attorney) Lanny Davis has described as chilling stories of what how the president conducts himself behind closed doors.”
RAw Story
Dum-da-dum-dum-DUUUUUUM.Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal. We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country.
An example is Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen and one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle. Blavatnik's family emigrated to the U.S. in the late '70s from the U.S.S.R. and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late '80s.
[...]
Blavatnik's campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines and relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan.
In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.
Dallas News
And now that Adam Schiff has gained control over the House Intel Committee, perhaps we'll see some action.In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund.
[...]
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democratic leader on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC News in September: "Unless the contributions were directed by a foreigner, they would be legal, but could still be of interest to investigators examining allegations of Russian influence on the 2016 campaign. Obviously, if there were those that had associations with the Kremlin that were contributing, that would be of keen concern."
[...]
Should Blavatnik's contributions concern Mueller's team of investigators? Take a look at his long-time business associates in Russia.
Oleg Deripaska is said to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs, and he is founder and majority shareholder of Russia's Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world. Blavatnik holds a stake in Rusal with a business partner [Viktor Vekselberg, one of the 10 richest men in Russia].
[...]
Andrew Intrater, according to Mother Jones, is Vekselberg's cousin. He is also chief executive of Columbus Nova, Renova's U.S. investment arm located in New York. (FEC records list his employer as Renova US Management LLC.)
Intrater had no significant history of political contributions prior to the 2016 elections. But in January 2017 he contributed $250,000 to Trump's Inaugural Committee. His six-figure gift bought him special access to a dinner billed as "an intimate policy discussion with select cabinet appointees," according to a brochure obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.
[...]
Earlier this year, The Associated Press reported that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, began collecting $10 million a year in 2006 from Deripaska to advance Putin's interests with Western governments. Deripaska's name turned up again in an email handed over to Mueller's team by Manafort's attorneys. According to The Washington Post, in the email dated July 7, 2016, just two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, Manafort asked an overseas intermediary to pass a message on to Deripaska: "If he [Deripaska] needs private briefings, tell him we can accommodate."
Ditch Mitch. Also Lindsey Graham. Overturn Citizens United. Enact serious campaign finance reform. Impeach Trump.Alexander Shustorovich, chief executive of IMG Artists, attempted to give the Republican Party $250,000 in 2000 to support the George W. Bush presidential campaign, but his money was rejected because of his ties to the Russian government, according to Quartz. So why didn't the Trump team reject Shustorovich's $1 million check to Trump's Inaugural Committee?
Simon Kukes is an oil magnate who has something in common with Intrater. From 1998 to 2003, he worked for Vekselberg and Blavatnik as chief executive of TNK. Redacted CIA documents released in 2003 under the Freedom of Information Act said "TNK president Kukes said that he bribed local officials." The CIA confirmed the authenticity of the reports to The Guardian newspaper but would not comment further. In 2016, Kukes contributed a total of $283,000, much of it to the Trump Victory Fund. He had no significant donor history before last year's election.
[...]
In total, Blavatnik, Intrater, Shustorovich and Kukes made $10.4 million in political contributions from the start of the 2015-16 election cycle through September 2017, and 99 percent of their contributions went to Republicans.
[...]
McConnell surely knew as a participant in high level intelligence briefings in 2016 that our electoral process was under attack by the Russians. Two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement in October 2016 that the Russian government had directed the effort to interfere in our electoral process, McConnell's PAC accepted a $1 million donation from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings. The PAC took another $1 million from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings on March 30, 2017, just 10 days after former FBI Director James Comey publicly testified before the House Intelligence Committee about Russia's interference in the election.
[...]
[Steve] Mnuchin owned Hollywood financing company RatPac-Dune with Blavatnik until he sold his stake to accept Trump's appointment as the Treasury secretary.
[...]
The contributions are legal because the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling, Citizens United, and several subsequent decisions, allowed American corporations and citizens to give unlimited amounts of money to PACs and non-profit 501c4 organizations, regardless of how they make their money, where they make their money, or with whom they make their money.
[...]
The changes to our campaign finance laws created an avenue for Russia to try to influence our elections. There are holes in our firewall and they aren't on the internet.
No wonder they don't have time to read the bills they vote on. Few buck this system, because the DCCC and the RNCC hand out money to congressional members and candidates for their campaigns, and withhold seats on committees and support for agendas of those who don't play along.[A] Florida Republican congressman from 2014 to 2017 [...] remembers seeing a “board of shame” outside grubby cubicles where colleagues made fundraising calls at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Democrats make their calls from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
“They had a huge whiteboard with every (Republican House) member’s name and how much money you’ve raised, and it’s red, green or black, depending if you’re over your target or under your target.
[...]
“[There's] a hallway with 10 to 15 of these miserable cubicles. They have these little radiators, or wall air conditioners. [...] These things are probably three feet by three feet. You get a chair and a phone, and they are ratty."
[...]
Federal law forbids seeking or receiving campaign contributions from federal offices, so the NRCC and DCCC set up their call centers in their headquarters just a few blocks from the Capitol.
[...]
Many ambitious members also raise money to fund “leadership PACS,” which help members make friends – particularly if they aspire to rise within party or House committee ranks.
“If he wants to climb to the leadership of his committee, he’ll want to give out money to other members of the committee in his party,” Arkedis said. “The (congressional party) leadership might ask him to kick in money to candidates who aren’t incumbents. They’ll say, ‘We think candidate X in such-and-such district is within striking distance. We’d like you to give him 5,000 bucks.’”
[...]
“If you put yourself in the role of congressional leadership, policy, ideology — all of that is secondary to maintaining (party) control (of Congress) or to attaining control. And the only way to do that is with money. And so leadership wants their rank-and-file members out there raising money [at a torrid $18,000-a-day clip], not legislating.”
There's a bill languishing from the 115th Congress that tries to address a small portion of the issue by prohibiting congressional members and candidates from soliciting funds while Congress is in session:Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) has largely managed to buck his fundraising obligations, he said, thanks to a safe district and, ironically, to the high name recognition he garnered from his judicial career and subsequent impeachment. But the congressman said the emphasis on fundraising makes more sense for freshmen members of Congress, who are contending with the era of Citizens United and unlimited independent political expenditures.
[...]
“Yours truly, in 20 years, I have combined — on behalf of DCCC, DNC and myself — been to DCCC for call time less than six hours in 20 years. I’m still standing.”
Hastings added that if he was forced to spend the majority of his time on fundraising, it would take a considerable toll on his ability to focus on his legislative responsibilities as an elected official. “It would cause me not to have the basic attitude that I have, and that is that I’m my own man,” Hastings said. “I would feel like I’m hooked, and that’s what happens here. That’s how this institution is run.”
[...]
Hastings noted the hypocrisy inherent in the system, which includes a law barring members from raising money while in their official office or the Capitol itself. “They don’t have to go to the DCCC to do it. They can get a cell phone on their campaign, and step outside of this place where you ain’t supposed to raise money [...] and make calls,” he said. The incongruity is even starker outside the upper chamber, he said.
“I don’t know if you’ve been on the Senate side,” Hastings said. “But they go outside and sit in their cars and make calls.”
Huffington Post January 2013
