Free Republic

If the other substantive weaknesses in the politically constructed Manhattan case against Donald Trump do not lead to a pre-trial dismissal, this one should collapse it.The Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) explicitly states the payments by President Trump to Stormy Daniels are not an election campaign violation.WASHINGTON DC – A key member of the Federal Election Commission today rejected the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment of former President Donald Trump as a violation of federal election laws.“It’s not a campaign finance violation. It’s not a reporting violation of any kind,” said FEC Commissioner James E. “Trey” Trainor. In trying...

Michael Cohen claimed he was not reimbursed by Donald Trump or his organization for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a 2018 letter to federal authorities, contradicting his recent grand jury testimony,The bombshell document, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, could throw a wrench in the works of prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump over the payments.Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and the star witness in the case over which Trump reportedly faces imminent arrest, claims that Trump got him to pay $130,000 to Daniels to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with the real estate mogul, just days...

Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office won't have much of a legal leg to stand on if they indict former President Donald Trump on violating campaign finance law, according to a legal expert and former member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). "If the state charges are based on a supposed violation of federal campaign finance law, then the Manhattan DA is way off base," Hans von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital. Von Spakovsky's comments came shortly after Trump said Saturday that he expects to be arrested Tuesday amid reports saying the Manhattan district attorney's office is preparing to...

The National Enquirer was fined $187,500 by the Federal Election commission for squelching a story about Donald Trump because they said it was a prohibited in-kind contribution to influence an election. Here's the story from the Associated Press:National Enquirer, caught in ‘catch-and-kill’ scandal, soldThe National Enquirer, the scandal-plagued tabloid that engaged in “catch-and-kill” practices to bury stories about Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, has been sold.The Federal Election Commission fined a360 Media $187,500 in June 2021 for squashing the McDougal story. The FEC said the publisher’s “payment to Karen McDougal to purchase a limited life story right combined with...

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s (TX) campaign committee received a hefty fine from the Federal Election Commission after he failed to properly return hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions. After being referred to the Office of General Counsel by the Federal Election Commission’s Reports Analysis Division, the Texas Republican was fined $42,000 for failing to give back $223,460.26 in illegal donations from the 2020 election cycle, court documents showed.

Get ready to be blown away. You are about to be treated to a real life story of heroes working tirelessly to Save Democracy and restore normalcy to American politics.Yes, Showtime has taken a deep dive into the wild world of politics to bring you a documentary that will rivet the nation from now until the end of time: Lincoln Project, The Movie.No, I am not kidding. They made a 5 part documentary about the Lincoln Project.It promises to be riveting stuff. Listen to what the producers have to say about it:“There has never been a super PAC that has...

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns are being fined thousands after unlawfully hiring illegal aliens for top staffer roles, according to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Aug 11. ruling, which is not yet public, concluded both Sanders’ campaigns broke federal law after “knowingly” employing three “foreign national” staffers from Mexico and Argentina who participated in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Both campaigns have agreed to pay an FEC penalty...

It’s official, maybe: Old Joe Biden has thrown his aviator sunglasses into the ring for the 2024 presidential election. The Independent reported Tuesday that “President Joe Biden has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish himself as a candidate for re-election in 2024. A ‘Statement of Organization’ submitted to the FEC on Tuesday registered ‘Biden for President’ as the principal campaign committee for candidates Joseph R Biden Jr and Kamala Harris.” As with so very many things coming out of the Biden White House, however, this filing is shrouded in confusion and not nearly as straightforward as the...

Any bets on him winning? 🙂

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has received more donations from Democrat-controlled California than any other state, including Wyoming, Federal Election Commission (FEC) data revealed about Cheney’s fundraising for the Republican primary, which will be held on August 16. “More than 1,100 Californians contributed nearly a tenth of the $13 million Cheney raised through June 30 for her reelection campaign,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “In that period, she received donations from just over 200 Wyoming residents, totaling more than $260,000.” The data represents donations from individuals under the Federal Election Commission’s $200 threshold. The data excludes donations from PACs for fundraising...

The Supreme Court sided with Senator Ted Cruz in a 6-3 decision issued Monday morning in a case brought against him by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over how loans from candidates can be repaid following an election cycle. The decision was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett while Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent and was joined in the minority by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor.Sen. Ted Cruz, who clerked on the Supreme Court, has won his case in FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate. The court ruled 6-3 that...

President Joe Biden has advised his White House aides to shift into campaign mode for the midterm elections, according to a report. The president privately asked his aides to start highlighting differences between his policies and those of the Republican Party, according to Axios, citing “people familiar with the conversations.” Biden himself has ratcheted up the political rhetoric, accusing Republicans of having a radical agenda that is out of touch with the middle class. Biden has focused his political attacks on Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, painting him as the leader of the...

Special Counsel John Durham on May 2 alerted the judge presiding over the case against a former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer of fines the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid after a federal body found probable cause that they violated election laws. Durham filed the Federal Election Commission (FEC) opinion and conciliation agreements that the campaign and the DNC entered into with the FEC along with paying the fines for what the FEC described as probable violations of laws governing the reporting of political entity disbursements. At issue is the Democrat entities’ ties to Fusion GPS, a...

Biden FEC nominee blamed ‘unreliable’ voting machines as she sued Georgia over Stacey Abrams losing election President Joe Biden’s pick for the Federal Election Commission, Dara Lindenbaum, is about as partisan as they get having represented Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ nonprofit that challenged the alleged unconstitutionality of the 2018 election. Lindenbaum is also representing Senator Raphael Warnock’s church in the lawsuit. The complaint ironically questioned the state’s use of “unreliable” electronic voting machines. The campaign finance attorney admittedly signed on to a federal legal complaint in November of 2018 on behalf of Abrams’s Fair Fight Action. Abrams has never...

The Federal Election Commission has fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign $8,000 and the Democratic National Committee $105,000 for obscuring their funding of the "Steele dossier," a 2016 opposition research report that sought to highlight alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia. The bipartisan election commission also dismissed a complaint against Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier that caused a firestorm of allegations and investigations that shook the early months of Trump's presidency. The campaign mislabeled Steele's work as "legal services" and "legal and compliance consulting" in campaign filings, the FEC concluded...... Steele's report concluded, based on anonymous sources, that...

The Federal Election Commission has fined the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for lying about the funding of the infamous, and discredited, Russian “dossier” used in a smear attempt against Donald Trump weeks before he shocked the world with his 2016 presidential victory. The election agency said that Clinton and the DNC violated strict rules on describing expenditures of payments funneled to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS through their law firm.

We reported earlier on some of the Biden connections to the Durham probe, including DNI John Ratcliffe confirming that Joe Biden had been told about the plan from the Clinton campaign to smear Donald Trump. But, there’s another intriguing piece of information that the Free Beacon just dropped — that in 2020, the Biden campaign also paid the same internet company being talked about concerning the Durham probe. The Biden campaign paid nearly $20,000 to a cybersecurity firm at the center of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. The campaign paid Neustar Information Services...

President Joe Biden is nominating a new commissioner to the Federal Election Commission, the nation's chief campaign finance watchdog. The White House announced on Friday that Biden was putting forward Dara Lindenbaum, a campaign finance attorney, to join the six-member board governing the agency, which is charged with enforcing campaign finance laws and issuing opinions guiding federal officeseekers. Lindenbaum, according to her bio on her law firm's website, was general counsel to Stacey Abrams' 2018 Georgia gubernatorial run and deputy general counsel for former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's 2016 presidential bid. If confirmed, she would replace longtime commissioner Steven Walther,...

When news broke a few days ago that his Department of Justice was negotiating a deal to pay some illegal immigrants $450,000 in damages, President Biden declared the news "garbage." Now that he has had time to confer with his advisors, he has pronounced himself "perfectly comfortable" with the idea. Press Secretary Jen Psaki explained that "when the President was informed of the very real suffering endured by these people—trekking hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of miles to get to the United States—he immediately saw the justice behind the demanded payments. The United States advertises itself as the 'land...

The Federal Election Commission has ruled foreign donors can finance U.S. referendum campaigns, opening the door to foreign spending on fights over high-profile policy issues, Axios has learned. Why it matters: Foreign nationals are barred from donating to U.S. political candidates or committees. But the FEC's decision — allowing them to support ballot committees — provides another avenue for foreigners to directly influence U.S. voters and domestic policy. A major question stemming from the decision is whether foreign nationals are now permitted to spend money to influence the actual mechanisms of the U.S. democratic process. That would include congressional redistricting,...