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In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of my client, Alabama
engineer Shaun McCutcheon, in his challenge to the Federal
Election Commission's (FEC) outdated "aggregate limits," which
effectively limited how many candidates any one donor could
support.

Anti-speech liberals railed against McCutcheon's win, arguing it
would create supersized "Joint Fundraising Committees" (JFCs).
In court, they claimed these JFCs would allow a single donor to
cut a multimillion-dollar check, and the JFC would then route
funds through dozens of participating state parties, who would
then funnel it back to the final recipient.

Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer claimed the Supreme
Court's McCutcheon v. FEC ruling would lead to "the system of
legalized bribery recreated that existed prior to Watergate."
The Supreme Court, in ruling for us, flatly stated such a scheme
would still be illegal.

The Democrats' response? Hold my beer.

The Committee to Defend the President has filed an FEC complaint
against Hillary Clinton's campaign, Democratic National
Committee (DNC), Democratic state parties and Democratic mega-
donors.

As Fox News reported, we documented the Democratic establishment
"us[ing] state chapters as straw men to circumvent campaign
donation limits and launder(ing) the money back to her
campaign." The 101-page complaint focused on the Hillary Victory
Fund (HVF) — the $500 million joint fundraising committee
between the Clinton campaign, DNC, and dozens of state parties —
which did exactly that the Supreme Court declared would still be
illegal.

HVF solicited six-figure donations from major donors, including
Calvin Klein and "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, and
routed them through state parties en route to the Clinton
campaign. Roughly $84 million may have been laundered in what
might be the single largest campaign finance scandal in U.S.
history.

Here's what we know. Campaign finance law is incredibly complex
and infamous for its lack of clarity. As I've explained before,
its complexity is a feature, not a bug. Major political players
with the resources to hire the very few attorneys who practice
campaign finance law benefit from the complexity that keeps
others out. Perhaps HVF's architects thought so too, and assumed
that if no one understands what's happening, no one would
complain.

Here's what you can do, legally. Per election, an individual
donor can contribute $2,700 to any candidate, $10,000 to any
state party committee, and (during the 2016 cycle) $33,400 to a
national party's main account. These groups can all get together
and take a single check from a donor for the sum of those
contribution limits — it's legal because the donor cannot exceed
the base limit for any one recipient. And state parties can make
unlimited transfers to their national party.

Here's what you can't do, which the Clinton machine appeared to
do anyway. As the Supreme Court made clear in McCutcheon v. FEC,
the JFC may not solicit or accept contributions to circumvent
base limits, through "earmarks" and "straw men" that are
ultimately excessive — there are five separate prohibitions here.

On top of that, six-figure donations either never actually
passed through state party accounts or were never actually under
state party control, which adds false FEC reporting by HVF,
state parties, and the DNC to the laundry list.

Finally, as Donna Brazile and others admitted, the DNC placed
the funds under the Clinton campaign's direct control, a massive
breach of campaign finance law that ties the conspiracy together.

Democratic donors, knowing the funds would end up with Clinton's
campaign, wrote six-figure checks to influence the election —
100 times larger than allowed.

HVF bundled these megagifts and, on a single day, reported
transferring money to all participating state parties, some of
which would then show up on FEC reports filed by the DNC as
transferring the exact same dollar amount on the exact same day
to the DNC. Yet not all the state parties reported either
receiving or transferring those sums.

Did any of these transfers actually happen? Or were they just
paper entries to mask direct transfers to the DNC?

For perspective, conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza was
prosecuted and convicted in 2012 for giving a handful of
associates money they then contributed to a candidate of his
preference — in other words, straw man contributions. He was
sentenced to eight months in a community confinement center and
five years of probation. How much money was involved? Only
$20,000. HVF weighs in at $84 million — more than 4,000 times
larger!

So who should be worried? Everyone involved — from the donors
themselves to Democratic fundraisers to party officials who
filed false reports and, ultimately, to Clinton campaign and HVF
officials looking at significant legal jeopardy.

Don't take my word for it. Our complaint is built entirely on
the FEC reports filed by Democrats, memos authored by Clinton
campaign manager Robbie Mook, and public statements from Donna
Brazile and others.

The only question that matters: Was the law broken? If the
answer is yes, then the corrupt Clinton machine should be held
accountable.

https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/the-anatomy-of- hillary-clintons-84-million-money-laundering-scheme/
 

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