Posted on 10/24/2016 10:46:00 AM PDT by TigerClaws
A former Republican political operative convicted in the first federal criminal case of illegal coordination between a campaign and a purportedly independent ally was sentenced Friday to two years in prison — a lighter punishment than prosecutors sought but one that still served as a sharp warning.
Under questioning from U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, Tyler Harber said: “I’m guilty of this. I knew it was wrong when I did it.” But Harber said he was not motivated by greed or a lust for power — he simply wanted to win an election and believed that what he was doing was a common, if illegal, practice. “I got caught up in what politics has become,” said Harber, 34, a resident of Alexandria.
[Feds ramp up scrutiny of candidates and independent groups]
Harber, who managed the unsuccessful 2012 congressional campaign of Chris Perkins in Northern Virginia — admitted in February that he helped create a super PAC and arranged for it to buy $325,000 in ads to help Perkins’s campaign, then lied to the FBI about his misdeeds. Federal prosecutors hailed Harber’s guilty plea and sentence as “an important step forward in the criminal enforcement of federal campaign finance laws,” and they indicated that they are ramping up scrutiny of the close ties between political campaigns and their ostensibly independent supporters.
The watershed prosecution comes as super PACs are playing increasingly prominent roles in national politics. Nearly all the 2016 White House contenders are being helped by outside groups run by friends or former strategists — in many cases, operating in close proximity. But complaints about potentially illegal coordination have stalled before the Federal Election Commission, which is mired in partisan gridlock. Top federal officials issued strong statements Friday warning that candidates and consultants should tread carefully as the 2016 race heats up.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said that political operatives should “think twice about circumventing laws that promote transparency in federal elections” and encouraged party and campaign insiders to act as whistleblowers. In court, federal prosecutor
Richard Pilger asked O’Grady to send Harber to prison for three years and 10 months, saying such a term would send a message to the campaign world that “how you win matters.”
They only enforce the law when it is a Republican.
what year was this?
Lock Her UP!!!
But Hillary’s doing the exact same thing !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEQvsK5w-jY&feature=youtu.be
Great timing for today’s video
Thanks for this find. It makes it possible to make the case for the O’Keefe video, which is too complex for the average guy on the street. But to see that a Republican got 2 years in prison for exactly the same thing brings it into focus.
And it takes it out of the realm of October Surprises and into the realm of genuine corruption. In my posts to social media, I try to point out that Trump has made bold proposals to clean up the destruction in the heart of the country. The alternative is more of the same.
Absolutely. Who wants to bet that the Democratic operatives are of no interest at all to government prosecutors?
The Rat Media Complex is a claymore.
Yes, the point was that the O’Keefe video led to a CONVICTION of a Republican.
Just last week other evidence of PAC/campaign coordination was on Wikileaks with the campaign creating a PAC (!!!) funded with millions of dollars from Hollywood-types.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3483115/posts
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