FOIA Request Seeks Information on AltFEC and Trump Resistance at FEC

Today, America's Foundation for Life and Liberty (AFLL), of which RNLA Vice President for Election Education David Warrington is Chairman and Lead Counsel, filed a FOIA request with the FEC for records related to the altFEC Twitter account:

“Our FOIA request will seek all records related to FEC staff and commissioners running an anti-Trump Administration effort out of the offices of the FEC,” said America’s Foundation for Law and Liberty Executive Director Elizabeth Tate. 

“Over the past few weeks, it has become apparent government employees at the FEC are working on government time to undermine the Trump administration, primarily through a Twitter account <altFEC>. Based on the timing of tweets, it is quite obvious FEC employees are performing their resistance campaign on government time and perhaps using government resources,” Tate continued.  “The people behind this effort are free to express their opinions on their own time and on their own dime, but they should not be using Government time and resources to further a partisan political agenda.” 

“We find this effort by so-called campaign finance reformers at the FEC hypocritical, especially since their leaders, Commissioners Ellen Weintraub and former Commissioner Ann Ravel, have long sought prohibitions on anonymous online political speech under the guise of advocating for transparency. If these ‘reformers’ want Americans to forfeit their freedom of speech for transparency, then let’s find out what has been going on at the FEC. The American people have a right to know if their tax dollars are being spent to subsidize the political activities of these partisans.”

A copy of the full FOIA request is here.  We've covered the problem of partisanship at the FEC, by both Democratic commissioners and staff, frequently in the past few weeks: 

Partisanship and Hypocrisy on Free Speech by FEC Democrats Should Concern Citizens

Left Reveals View of FEC as Tool to Oppose Republicans 

FEC Commissioner Weintraub: Using FEC Resources to Engage in Partisan Activity 

FEC Commissioner Weintraub: Hypocrite on Speech Seeks Control Over All Aspects of Federal Elections

We hope that AFLL's FOIA request will yield some information on whether FEC staff is using government resources to engage in partisan activity.  Of course, agencies provide as little as they can in response to FOIA requests as possible, but at the very least, perhaps this FOIA request will deter such activity in the future.