Not a smidgen!
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Interview With FEC Vice Chairman Don McGahn
FOX News Channel - Monday, August 5, 2013
Show: FOX ON THE RECORD WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN
Author: Greta Van Susteren
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New evidence tonight that the IRS political targeting goes beyond the IRS . The new evidence raises suspicions about the president’s lawyer, Bob Bauer . Why did Bauer e-mail the FEC about a conservative group and the FEC then e-mailed Lois Lerner at the IRS ?
FEC vice chairman Don McGahn joins us. Nice to see you.
DON MCGAHN, FEC VICE CHAIRMAN: Nice to see you.
VAN SUSTEREN: OK, so why is the FEC in this?
MCGAHN: The FEC is in this because there were some FEC staff that had reached out to the IRS in 2008 regarding a few conservative groups. And as you know, the IRS has already under fire for targeting conservative groups. This was made public somewhat recently by folks in the House of Representatives.
VAN SUSTEREN: What business does the FEC have going to the IRS for information? And was this private, or was this public or private information?
MCGAHN: Well, originally, the FEC — it was an FEC investigator reached out to the — to the IRS , directly to Lois Lerner, the person who has come under the most fire at the IRS , asking for information regarding a group called the American Future Fund. And the request was for information generally, and the IRS cannot provide general information. Eventually, the IRS did provide some public information.
What is interesting is, first of all, why would an FEC investigator be reaching out to the IRS without commission approval? The way the FEC works, under the statute...
VAN SUSTEREN: And you’re on the commission.
MCGAHN: I’m the vice chairman of the commission currently. The commission needs to improve any sort of investigation. So first, you have an investigator reaching out to the IRS . Second, if they’re only asking for non-public — or sorry, for public information, why reach out directly to Lois Lerner? Why wouldn’t you go in the way that the public would look, maybe a Web site or go directly to the IRS and pull the file, make a photocopy, the sort of thing you might do.
Third, what’s interesting is after this initial contact which happened in July of 2008, a mere two business days later, the IRS sent a questionnaire to the American Future Fund. Now, perhaps this has benign. Perhaps it was already in the pipeline. These are very real questions that the IRS needs to answer.
The Congress has asked both the FEC and the IRS to produce any communications between the two agencies. I’m glad they’ve done that to get to the bottom of what could be a new development in the IRS debacle.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, before it even gets to the FEC, what’s so peculiar is that Bob Bauer , who is a long-time lawyer in town for Democratic politics — I think he was on the president’s — he’s now at the White House, but before that, I think he was on the president’s team for re-election.
He, incidentally, as sort of an odd note, is married to Anita Dunn, who can’t stand FOX News and was on a total campaign against us, full disclosure. But Bob Bauer is the one who — who contacted the FEC first about this conservative group. The FEC then sort of takes that water and carries it over to the IRS to Lois Lerner.
MCGAHN: Sort of. There’s two groups at issue. One’s the American Future Fund, which I mentioned. There’s another one, the American Issues Project...
VAN SUSTEREN: That’s the one Bob Bauer was asking about.
MCGAHN: That’s the one that the presidential campaign filed a complaint against them, as did a reform group from Washington, D.C. They were pretty hot and heavy about an ad that ran around the time of the Democratic convention, and they claimed that the ad was illegal because it was banned political speech. And as we know, since the Citizens United decision struck that ban, much of that complaint went away.
VAN SUSTEREN: Is there anything Bob Bauer did, though, that was — I mean, I’m going to back to the (INAUDIBLE) anything Bob Bauer did that was peculiar as he’s making this request to the FEC?
MCGAHN: I don’t think there was anything peculiar at the time that he filed a complaint. Campaigns file complaints all the time against people that they don’t like and messages that they would rather not have people focus on.
What was a little bit different was the Obama campaign also raised the specter of criminal prosecution and claimed that the activity was criminal. It’s kind of a stretch when you deal with 1st Amendment speech to claim that it could be criminal.
In hindsight, when you combine this with what’s happened since, whether it is the president criticizing the Citizens United speech in the State of the Union address, the massive call that there’s been for additional disclosure requirements, the Disclose Act, and pushed by the Senate Democratic leadership calls on other agencies to do things about these so-called shadowy groups, these 501(c)4s, it starts to look pretty bad when one was — when one tried to raise the criminal specter on what’s otherwise protected political speech.
VAN SUSTEREN: And actually, as sort of an aside is that prior to 2001, I think it was, is that Lois Lerner was actually at the FEC and then moved over...
MCGAHN: Lois Lerner used to work...
VAN SUSTEREN: ... to the IRS .
MCGAHN: ... at the FEC. She was the head of the enforcement division for a little bit at the FEC. And that had somewhat of mixed reviews. The Christian Coalition had some issues with some enforcement cases that the commission tried to bring. Commission went to court against the Christian Coalition and lost the case rather decisively, for the most part.
VAN SUSTEREN: Think it’s safe to say that there’s enough there to investigate, to warrant further investigation, right?
MCGAHN: Well, I think Congress needs to continue doing oversight of both the FEC and the IRS . And I think we need to see where the facts take us. At this point, we do have communication between the FEC and the IRS , which is not in the ordinary course of the FEC’s business. It seems odd. It seems odd that an investigator would be reaching out to Lois Lerner directly, and I think Congress correctly is asking for documents, and hopefully...
VAN SUSTEREN: We’ll see where it goes.
MCGAHN: ... they will do their job, and we’ll see where this takes us.
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Published: August 8, 2013
It is not the Republicans on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) who seek to “ram through policies” that would “change” commission-approved practices. Rather, it is FEC staff members who seek radical change, in which they alone would be empowered to make decisions that the law says are to be made by the commissioners.
Congress decided long ago that the commissioners, not the staff, make the decisions at the FEC. The reason is clear: to prevent partisan targeting. On whether the FEC should have a publicly available enforcement manual, this is not a partisan issue. My proposal tracks the statute and mirrors one suggested by the Democratic powerhouse lawyers of Perkins Coie. Staff members have other ideas and want to centralize decision-making in their hands, bypassing the commission.
Such proposals require the commission to decide what is permissible under the statute, and this requires the affirmative vote of at least four commissioners. Thus, despite the 3-2 Republican majority, things cannot simply be rammed through by majority rule. The statute must be interpreted, and rules and policies adopted in a bipartisan manner, and such issues cannot be left to staff to decide. FEC Republicans have consistently sought transparency and wish to deliberate such issues in full view of the public; it is the Democratic chair who is opposed.
Donald F. McGahn II, Washington
The writer is vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
Former FEC chairman Donald McGahn resigns from panel
September 17, 2013
EXCERPT
McGahn served on the FEC at a time of rapid change in campaign-finance law. The past several years have given rise to an explosion of outside spending, from 501(c)(4) organizations to super PACs. The Supreme Court also struck down several provisions of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold, forcing the FEC to rewrite some of its rules.
McGahn led a bloc of three Republicans who almost always voted together. Campaign-finance reform advocates and editorial boards were often critical of what they characterized as McGahn’s efforts to chip away at election rules and regulations.
McGahn also pushed unsuccessfully this year for rules that would have barred FEC lawyers from sharing information with federal prosecutors without commission approval. The FEC’s top lawyer abruptly resigned amid feuding over the proposal.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_L._Weintraub
Ellen L. Weintraub is a Commissioner on the United States Federal Election Commission.
She received a recess appointment to the Commission on December 6, 2002, and took office on December 9, 2002.[2] She was renominated on January 9, 2003, and confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate on March 18, 2003. Shortly after her arrival at the FEC, Weintraub was elected Chair of the Commission for 2003. She is the third woman[3] to serve on the Commission. In June 2008, two more women, Cynthia L. Bauerly and Caroline C. Hunter, joined Weintraub on the Commission.[4] Although Weintraub’s term ended April 30, 2007, by statute she continues in office until her successor takes office.[5]
Prior to her appointment, Weintraub was Of Counsel to Perkins Coie LLP and a member of its Political Law Group.
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President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration:
Robert F. Bauer, Appointee for Co-Chair, Presidential Commission on Election Administration
Robert F. Bauer is currently a partner at Perkins Coie LLP and General Counsel to the Democratic National Committee.
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FEC offices:
http://www.fec.gov/about/offices/offices.shtml