Posted on 07/12/2017 10:48:36 AM PDT by KeyLargo
FEC Commissioner Now Going After Right Wing Media Over Russian 'Collusion'
By Kristine Marsh | July 11, 2017
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is looking to target right-wing media outlets under the guise that they could’ve helped Russia interfere into our presidential election, reported The Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard Tuesday.
The commission will decide at this Thursday’s meeting whether or not to investigate websites like the Drudge Report, Breitbart and others on the right for violating election spending rules by allowing advertising on their Facebook pages by Russian entities.
The call for investigation was spearheaded by the FEC’s Democrat commissioner, Ellen L. Weintraub, who has been trying to accomplish this for months. In May, she told Politico, “I think there is potential there for finding a violation, but I don’t want to suggest that I have prejudged anything that could potentially come before me.”
Weintraub cited a recent report from Time magazine which revealed Russian agents had bought Facebook ads during election season to disseminate anti-Clinton propaganda. Time, citing a McClatchy report, also alleged that some of these right-wing media outlets may have had ties to Russian agents and may have coordinated these election-related “attacks” through their advertising.
While the FEC’s role is to regulate proper use of campaign spending, it has been accused in recent years of overstepping its boundaries. According to Bedard, this could quickly lay way for the commission to put these sites through an “inquisition:”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Its the advertising $$$ they reference.
Is there a Russian, that’s not an “agent”?
What about Chinese citizens? They are from an ACTUAL communist country. Are they “agents”?
So much for the First Amendment.
WITCH HUNT. Who is in charge of the FEC? That agency needs to be revamped.
Why is there a Democrat performing a federal executive function, that doesn't answer to the Chief Executive, Donald J. Trump?
Someone needs to be the adult in the FEC’s headshed.
Probably why Drudge does everything he can to promote the New York Times’s LIES.
I don’t know much about the FEC.
Are the commisioners appointed by current Administrations?
Dem FEC Commissioner
Potentially Violated Federal Ethics Laws With Trump Demand
Ellen Weintraub demands Trump prove voter fraud scheme
Email
FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub / AP
BY: Joe Schoffstall
February 15, 2017 4:57 am
And the witch hunt continues.
How the dems are able to see the speck in our eyes while they have a log in their own is truly amazing.
The fact they are ten times more guilty of the crimes they accuse Trump and company of is truly hypocritical.
And there they are - with their own lap dog, Robert Mueller - hunting down any charge, no matter how false.
Yet Trump has done NOTHING to counter punch. I’ve heard we have an Attorney General. Jeff Somebody or other, right?
Where the HELL is he? Why are there no federal investigations against Comey, Bill, Hillary, Lynch, Obama and so many others????
Who the hell is running this circus anyway?
The Clintons?
Obama?
CNN?
Democratic FEC commissioner resigns
By Rebecca Morin
02/19/2017 02:59 PM EST
Updated 02/19/2017 03:41 PM EST
Ann Ravel, a Democratic member of the Federal Election Commission, submitted her resignation letter to President Donald Trump on Sunday with a plea to embrace campaign finance reform.
Ravel’s last day will be March 1. If the six-member commission loses two more commissioners, it will lack a quorum and be unable to take key actions — raising pressure on Trump to fill the upcoming vacancy.
The FEC, which has long been plagued by internal discord, is required to have no more than three members of the same party.
In her letter, which she posted on Medium, Ravel blasted the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which she said has made political campaigns “awash in unlimited, often dark, money.” She also noted Trump had criticized the role of money in politics during his campaign, including the influence of wealthy donors and rise of powerful super PACs. And she urged him to prioritize campaign finance reform.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/ann-ravel-fec-commissioner-resigns-235197
Yes
Democrats At FEC Keep Accepting Foreign-Funded Trips
Drew Johnson
National Director, Protect Internet Freedom
8:14 PM 07/11/2017
Democrats on America’s top election oversight agency have regularly accepted lavish junkets funded by foreign governments and organizations.
Since 2002, the Federal Election Commission’s three Democratic members took at least 50 official trips during their combined time serving on the agency, according to documents obtained from public records and Freedom of Information Act requests. Expenses related to the trips were paid by a combination of foreign groups, governments, and by U.S. taxpayers through the agency’s own budget.
According to the records, which come from the Office of Governmental Ethics and FEC records published by The Hill’s Rudy Takala, none of the FEC’s three Republican commissioners have ever taken a single agency-related international trip while serving on the commission.
Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who has engaged in more sponsored trips than any of her colleagues, sought last month to stoke fears over the influence that she said foreign money could have had on the 2016 election, claiming that Russia might have bought ads on Facebook aimed at influencing the American electorate.
“I have spoken out on many occasions about my concern about the potential for foreign money creeping into our system,” Weintraub said in an interview on CNN. “I’ve tried on numerous occasions to introduce stronger rules to the FEC to try and ward that off.”
Weintraub has ironically used the prospect of “foreign money” to threaten online outlets such as the Drudge Report, claiming that countries including Russia could place political ads online if the feds don’t impose more regulations.
But that concern has not translated into any fewer trips by Weintraub and her Democratic colleagues.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/11/democrats-at-fec-keep-accepting-foreign-funded-trips/
Opinion
FEC’s Commissioner, Weintraub, Flagrantly Abusing Power
Michael Thielen
Executive Director, Republican National Lawyers Association
10:49 AM 06/29/2017
The Trump Administration, from its inauguration, has faced remarkable partisan opposition even from people who work for, and purport to speak for, the government. These partisan “resistance” operatives inside the government often operate anonymously, through “alt” Twitter accounts, but some have gone public with their opposition to President Trump.
So it is with Democrat Commissioner Ellen Weintraub of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency responsible for oversight and regulation of campaign finance issues; or, to use the vernacular, money in politics. The FEC is made up of 6 commissioners holding Republican and Democrat positions who each carry their own personal opinions and biases — much like Supreme Court justices — but who, at least in theory, work to apply campaign finance law as objectively as possible. However, unlike the Supreme Court, the FEC, with its even number of commissioners, requires minimum bipartisan consensus to take any action, keeping obvious partisanship from winning the day.
Commissioner Weintraub has been championing brazen partisanship inside a federal agency bound by law and the legal scope and jurisdiction of the agency. What was it created to do? Administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which regulates the spending and contributing of money in federal elections. It has limited jurisdiction and does not have broad power over all aspects of federal elections. Specifically, according to the FEC itself, it does not have jurisdiction over claims of vote fraud, voting rights, election integrity, or election security.
Weintraub’s campaign against the President, using FEC time and resources, has been going on for months. Weintraub wrote a letter back in May, after Trump suggested there was vote fraud in the 2016 election and that Kelly Ayotte’s losing bid in New Hampshire may have been due to election meddling, demanding Trump explain himself and offer proof for his claims. (It should be noted that Weintraub was silent when the New Hampshire Secretary of State announced that almost 500 people may have voted illegally.)
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/29/fecs-commissioner-weintraub-flagrantly-abusing-power/
>Why is there a Democrat performing a federal executive function, that doesn’t answer to the Chief Executive, Donald J. Trump?
Because congress won’t approve his appointees. They’ve approved 46 of 160 or so. At the rate they’re going it will be his second term before that done.
Why can’t Trump just informaly bring in people as advisos.
Or use executive orders.
Clinton and Obama did whatever they wanted
no matter what the rules were
Heck Clinton didn’t even require many of his WH people to get security clearances
Craig Livingstone for one
Can the FEC. They did nothing about libtard sponsorship pf violence at Trump rallies. They did nothing about voter intimidation. Nothing about vote fraud. Nothing about collusion between the dnc, cnn, and hillary campaign to rig the primary, nothing...
>Why can’t Trump just informaly bring in people as advisos.
Because the media would jump all over it.
>Or use executive orders.
They’d call him Hitler for it and it would be hard for use to defend because ruling by executive order is unconstitutional. Conservative are not at the point where they’re willing to fight fire with fire on stuff like that.
>Clinton and Obama did whatever they wanted
Again the media covered for them while Trump’s under a microscope.
Trump’s working to fundamentally change the system much like Reagan tried but failed. Everyone is fighting him over it. It’s going to be a long slog.
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