A ‘doozy’ of a campaign-finance violation (by the Bush campaign)

[ProSense]

March 23, 2007

A ‘doozy’ of a campaign-finance violation

It’s fairly routine for big campaigns to run afoul of some campaign-finance measure. A campaign may miss a deadline, or misreport a donation, or exceed a spending limit. In general, the Federal Election Commission notices, the candidate in question makes amends, and nary an eyebrow is raised.

But a $40 million excess in campaign spending isn’t just a clerical error.

The three Democrats on the Federal Election Commission revealed yesterday that they strongly believe President Bush exceeded legal spending limits during the 2004 presidential contest and that his campaign owes the government $40 million.

Their concerns spilled out during a vote to approve an audit of the Bush campaign’s finances, which is conducted to make sure the campaign adhered to spending rules after accepting $74.6 million in public money for the 2004 general election.

The conflict apparently arose behind the scenes, but the FEC’s audit of the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign reportedly divided commissioners. “We had a disagreement on this audit, and it was a doozy,” said one of the Democrats, Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub.

<...>

So why are we just now hearing about this? Because the Bush-appointed Republicans on the FEC rejected the Dems’ concerns.

Commissioner Hans A. von Spakovsky, a Republican, “There was no broken bargain,” he said. “There was no violation of the law.”

And who’s Hans A. von Spakovsky? Barbara O’Brien reminds us of concerns from 2005:

The most objectionable nominee is Hans von Spakovsky, a former Republican county chairman in Georgia and a political appointee at the Justice Department. He is reported to have been involved in the maneuvering to overrule the career specialists who warned that the Texas gerrymandering orchestrated by Representative Tom DeLay violated minority voting rights. Senators need the opportunity to delve into that, as well as reports of Mr. von Spakovsky’s involvement in such voting rights abuses as the purging of voter rolls in Florida in the 2000 elections.

The Dems’ objections were also blocked by Commissioner Michael E. Toner, who just so happened to be a former Bush attorney and counsel to the Republican National Committee.

From Mahblog:

Of course they did. Let’s take a peek back into the Maha archives — from December 31, 2005 — “Federal Election Commission Stacked With Bush Cronies.” The stacking occurred after the 2004 election, but the stackees are the guys who are claiming Bush didn’t do anything wrong.

This story caused me to search The Maha Archives for this post from December 31, 2005: Federal Election Commission Stacked With Bush Cronies.

The FEC normally has six members, three Republicans and three Democrats. One of the Republican, Michael Toner, just resigned, but not before voting on this issue. Toner is a former attorney for Bush ‘s election campaign staff and the Republican National Committee. The two other Republicans who voted are David Mason, a former Heritage Foundation fellow and a Clinton appointee; and Hans von Spakovsk, who became a commissioner by recess appointment in December 2005. A New York Times editorial of December 31, 2005 said of von Spakovsky,

This from a Boston Globe editorial about the Swift Liars when Bush's campaign lawyer resigned:

There is a legitimate 527 issue. The members of the Federal Election Commission, appointed by Bush and Bill Clinton, have betrayed their office by not reining in groups that are too closely aligned with both campaigns.

But that is not the issue with the anti-Kerry veterans. The issue is Bush -- his refusal to condemn a patently false attack, his willingness to try to reap some political reward on the cheap, his utter lack of leadership in brushing off the role played by his close political aides

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/08/27/smeared_by_ginsberg">link

One of those cronies appeared on Lou Dobbs July 10, 2006:

PILGRIM: Federal guidelines for designing and testing electronic voting machines were drafted by a federal advisory board in 2005. But those standards are voluntary and won't be officially into effect until December 2007.

DeForest Soaries was the first chair of the Federal Election Assistance Commission set up after the hanging chad controversy of 2000 to oversee election reform. Soaries resigned April of last year.

DEFOREST SOARIES, FORMER CHMN, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMM.: Well what's wrong with the standards is they are not standards, they are recommendations at best. I'm worried about electronic voting because we've done such inadequate research that we don't know what we don't know.

PILGRIM: Computer engineers say the guidelines are not enough to actually check the machine that is in place at the polling station.

link

Who is DeForest Soaries? Remember this incident involving black ministers, NJ and Ed Rollins:

Following the 1992 elections, during a breakfast debriefing, Rollins admitted to journalists that one factor in the success of Christine Todd Whitman in the New Jersey governor's race against incumbent Democrat Jim Florio had been the distribution of "walking around" money to influential persons in inner-city precincts, including African-American pastors.

According to Rollins, workers who had been hired to help get out the Democratic vote were told, "How much have they paid you to do your normal duty? . . . We'll match it. Go home, sit, and watch television." In addition, Rollins said, "We went into black churches and we basically said to ministers who had endorsed Florio, 'Do you have a special project?' And they said, 'We've already endorsed Florio.' And we said, 'That's fine, don't get up on the Sunday pulpit and preach. . . . Don't get up there and say it's your moral obligation that you go out on Tuesday and vote for Jim Florio.'" Ministers who cooperated, Rollins said, received contributions to their "favorite charities." As a result, Rollins said, "I think, to a certain extent, we suppressed their vote."

Subsequently, the Democrats launched a lawsuit as Rollins' comments were alleged to be an admission of illegal behavior. When cross-examined by Democratic attorneys, Rollins claimed that his comments had been no more than part of a "psychological warfare" game he was playing with James Carville, the campaign manager for Whitman's opponent. A federal grand jury investigation proceeded, but eventually the grand jury concluded that no evidence had been presented to show that any laws had been broken.

link

On the basis of Rollins's original assertions, the New Jersey Democratic party filed its suit to overturn the election. But it later dropped the effort, saying it would be impossible to prove that vote suppression efforts had altered the outcome. One can only hope that this retreat has not deterred news organizations from investigating vigorously in an effort to solve this New Jersey mystery once and for all.

link

Soaries was the lead minister:

Former Chairman of the EAC was DeForest Soaries Jr a Baptist minister, and a Republican who was former New Jersey Secretary of State under then-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who claimed that critics are blowing problems with electronic voting machines out of proportion (as quoted by The Washington Post on February 17, 2004: "We have some flaws, but the truth is that the error rates are very small, with all technologies. Legislators are proposing solutions to a problem that doesn't exist. They're talking about 'What if?' scenarios.") <1>

"We're a very diverse commission," Soaries told The Washington Post. "We have a Hispanic lawyer, an Italian administrator, an African American executive and a Baptist preacher."

link

Equally glaring but less well-known, Madsen said, is Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr, the Bush-appointed chairman of the new United States Election Assistance Commission, which was created after Florida’s debacle in 2000. Saories is a partisan Republican with a long history of attacking Democratic candidates and office-holders. When GOP consultant Ed Rollins boasted in the 1993 New Jersey governor’s race electing Christie Todd Whitman that he suppressed the Black vote, Madsen said Rollins was referring to money that he gave Soaries to distribute among Black clergy to discourage turnout. The chairman of the nation’s supposedly unbiased election oversight board also had a role in attacking the former California Secretary of State, Kevin Shelly, who recently resigned under pressure. “We’ve got to get the election process out of the hands of these kinds of firms and these people,” Madsen said.

link

More on Soaries:

http://www.eac.gov/soaries.asp?format=none
http://fbcsomerset.com/about/staff/senior.shtml

[AndyA]

1. Good grief! What do the Republicans have to do for people to wake up to their scummy practices?

If they start killing people in the streets, would that do it?

They've done just about everything else, they've probably killed people as well!

And why are we not impeaching Bush and Cheney again?

[ClintonTyree]

3. Nope....

there's no way to reach that 33% that support the chimp and every other rethuglican miscreant on the planet. They're so ensconced in their ideology that nothing could turn them into decent human beings again. Fuck 'em. We'll just have to work around them. Or through them.

[MissWaverly]

4. I wish we could get somebody like Fitzgerald to head DOJ

it's really become the Department of Injustice.

[MissWaverly]

6. What I mean is, there is never any consequences to this stuff

How many times have we heard something stinks about 2000, and 2004, now it was 40 million
over the limit by Bush, but there is NO problem becuz he has been bailed out yet again
by a bushbot, surely there has to be some kind of consequences, surely the DOJ if it wasn't
so dirty would have to become involved.

[Hepburn]

2. Yeah.....

....well, Halliburton will just write them a check.

[glitch]

5. Let's create a game: the first person who finds something they do legally, wins. nt

[ProSense]

7. More information

here.

[Bluedogvoter]

8. This is an interesting situation.

You have 3 democrats saying he should have to pay back the 40 million and 3 republicans saying he shouldn't have too.

The actual issue is with hybrid ads. These are ads that promote both Bush and other republicans that were running for office in 2004.

The Republicans are saying since they promoted other people besides the President the cost should be split between Bush and the others promoted. The Democrats are saying Bush should be responsible for the entire amount.

I could care less about the partisan nature of the decision, that is to be expected these days. I'm interested in if hybrid ads are acceptable in having the cost split between the people it promotes.

Also, if Bush does have to repay the 40 million, the money should be refunded to the other politicians that paid in on it that were promoted.

[karynnj]

10. The problem is that they suppotrted BUSH

or trashed Kerry and then simply said vote for Bush/Cheney and a Republican Congress to let them complete their agenda {I don't remember actual wording) They were for all intents and purposes Bush ads.

Also, the penalty - even if levied - will not top this. They still got what they want - Bush in a close win. (Did $40 million of ads influence 60,000 more people in Ohio?)

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. More dirt hey

what is new?

[ProSense]

11. Kick! n/t

[MODemocrat]

12. A preacher for the Devil?

The republicans will invariably do over-kill on everything; they're always right there on every "newscast" turning our attention away from the killing and maiming, and all the coverups of the Bush-gang. Scumbags abound in that fascist administration.
:evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :mad: :mad: :mad: