All Citizens Are Entitled to an Impartial FEC

(This is the fourth in a series of five posts on the demonstrated bias of Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.  The first installment is here, the second here, the third here, and the last installment will be posted in the next few days.)

Former FEC Chairman Brad Smith was the first to warn the American public, detailing the legal problems presented by Commissioner Weintraub's actions in a June 2017 blog post at the Institute for Free Speech.  According to Chairman Smith, "Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub's actions in recent months cast serious doubt on whether she can continue to credibly carry on her duties as a Commissioner.  She should recognize this predicament and do the honorable thing, which is to resign."  Chairman Smith outlined federal law that requires government officials to act without bias and documented Weintraub's violations of that legal duty.  
  
Chairman Smith also explained the corrosive effects of the anonymous AltFEC Twitter feed in 2017, before it was widely known that the AltFEC twitter feed is sponsored by Weintraub's staff.  

Liberal defenders like Professor Rick Hasen rallied to Weintraub's defense.  Hasen called Chairman Smith "mean spirited" for his analysis of Weintraub's bias.  No doubt Professor Hasen has exhibited some mean spiritedness on his own blog.  More important than his one-sided view of campaign finance discourse, however, apparently liberals like Hasen thinks it's okay for Democratic law enforcement officials like Loretta Lynch and Ellen Weintraub to enforce the law with prejudice.  They are not in the least bit concerned for "good government" when it comes to law enforcement bias, which is its own form of corruption.  

But Chairman Smith was right and it shouldn't take a national controversy like Lois Lerner or Peter Strozk to restore the appearance of fairness and impartiality.  Weintraub's demonstrations of bias are worse than the Peter Strozk controversy.  Her public political jabs at the President go well beyond private texts and emails.  And her votes to punish Trump demonstrate that she will use her public office to get the President.  Yet, there has been little outcry about it.   

The FEC is a law enforcement agency.  Commissioner Weintraub is a law enforcement official.  Nobody looking at this evidence could reasonably conclude that Commissioner Weintraub is unbiased, fair and neutral in her approach to President Trump.  Nor is she known throughout Washington, DC as a dispassionate, objective regulator.  Rather, she has a reputation as a flamboyant, outspoken ideologue, given to partisan infighting and polarization on the Commission.  The strong opinions she and her confidential counsel have expressed about President Trump (and other Republicans) taint everything the FEC does.  

President Trump is entitled to not only actual neutrality but the absolute appearance of neutrality in the enforcement of campaign finance laws by the FEC.  That neutrality does not exist so long as Commissioner Weintraub and her office participate on Trump cases.  Like the FBI fired Peter Strozk, Commissioner Weintraub should do the right thing and remove herself from all cases related to Donald Trump.      

Weintraub's Personal Staff Exhibits Bias Against Trump and Republicans

(This is the second in a series of five posts on the demonstrated bias of Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.  The first installment is here, the third is here, and the next installments will be posted in the next few days.)

Commissioner Weintraub's Personal Staff Routinely Trolls President Trump and Criticizes All Things Republican

Since President Trump took office, Weintraub's personal staff has been tweeting almost daily invective about President Trump and Republicans on the Twitter account altFEC, self-described as "The unofficial Resistance team of the U.S. Federal Election Commission." "Resistance" means resistance to the Trump Administration.  Consider a few examples of the kind of deep enmity and prejudice expressed toward President Trump:

• Gleefully: "Mr. Art Of The Deal got his ass kicked by the D.C. City Government"

• Directed at a Donald Trump tweet on legal issues likely to be addressed by the FEC:  "Once this is over, however it ends, we’re going to wonder, 'Why did we put up with this nuttiness for so long?'"

• Retweeting James Comey's criticism of President Trump on issues likely to come before the FEC:  "Thought experiment: Make a list of all the public figures in this country and around the world the current president has criticized. Ask yourself: 'Why is Putin missing from the list?' No responsible American should ever stop asking, 'Why?'" 

• Mocking Trump:  "Where are Hillary Clinton's emails? Mr. Trump said.  Oh, here's one.  [faux email from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump]  Resign, you treasonous clown." 

• Criticizing Trump:  "Oddly, as his behavior gets more erratic & overtly pro-Russian, it may actually be a sign that Trump is *not* a Russian agent. Because at a certain point – one already passed – you would think his handlers would say, 'Yo, dude, tone it down a little. You’re being too oobvious [sic].'” 

• Prejudging alleged payments by Trump to Cohen as undisclosed campaign expenditures, a matter likely to come before the FEC:  "So, the payments Trump made to Cohen to cover the #Stormy payoff included money for “a few other situations that might have been considered campaign expenses,” Giuliani tells @costareports. Why weren’t *these* expenses disclosed? https://t.co/lKJFLA1fbA" 

• Promising Trump detractors to conduct private investigations of their secret complaints.

• Exhorting cable carriers to drop Fox News -- a news channel Commissioner Weintraub concluded broke the law by hosting a Republican debate in 2016:  "Here's a question. The more people watch #FoxNews, the less well-informed they are about basic facts. Arguably, FOX is tearing at the fabric of our democracy. They have a 1st Amendment right to exist, but not to be carried by cable companies. So: Why do cable companies carry it? https://t.co/0Ttqvrl5EQ"   

The person responsible for this anti-Republican venom is none other than Weintraub's confidential counsel, Tom Moore, who was publicly identified as AltFEC by Rudy Takala of The Hill on his Twitter feed on February 26, 2017.  People close to the Commission confirm that Weintraub is aware of Moore's anti-Trump crusade and approves of his activities.  According to one source, Weintraub has been known to defend Moore's right to express his anti-Trump hostilities (anonymously!) toward the very people who are the subject of FEC enforcement authority by invoking the First Amendment -- a constitutional provision she rarely acknowledges when supporting enforcement against other citizens.

How can Commissioner Weintraub's office be viewed as fair, neutral, impartial when such nasty ad hominem attacks at President Trump are being published by her personal staff?  It simply cannot. 

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.

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

RNLA Vice President for Communications Ron Hicks wrote about the dangers of partisanship and hypocrisy regarding free speech from the Democrats at the FEC:

In the name of democracy and equal speech, campaign finance “reformers” demand broad power for the FEC to regulate the political speech of average citizens, organizations, and corporations, requiring disclosure, repeated filings, and compliance with complicated regulations (that not even the FEC understands), while asserting freedom and anonymity rights for their own political speech. This hypocrisy has been demonstrated numerous times in recent months. . . .  

Part of this desire to investigate and regulate political speech on the Internet is to defeat anonymity through requiring registration and disclosure with the FEC. This would be especially hypocritical if Center for Public Integrity’s supposition is true and former Commissioner Ravel is involved with the altFEC account. . . . 

Strong partisanship on the part of FEC Democrats shakes the public’s confidence that the FEC will apply the law equally without regard to partisan or policy goals. And when the “reform” community within and without the FEC applies different standards for speech and anonymity to themselves and others, it not only further de-legitimizes the agency but also reveals the “reform” movement’s goal: to silence speakers that disagree with them through actual or threatened government regulation.

In the end, the question is whether Americans should be concerned about the strong partisanship of this FEC’s Democrats. In my opinion, the answer should be “yes,” because the reformers’ right to speak in the name of democracy should not be greater than the right of those in the democracy who disagree with them.  

Last week, we covered this partisanship and hypocrisy in detail, as Ron does in his op-ed:

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 the Democrat FEC commissioners, including whomever is selected to replace former Commissioner Ann Ravel, will reduce their strident partisanship and apply consistent standards to restore public confidence in the FEC's ability to interpret and apply the law fairly. 

Left Reveals View of FEC as Tool to Oppose Republicans

Over the long weekend, Democrat FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel resigned from the FEC.  We've catalogued Commissioner Ravel's partisanship, passion for regulating internet speech, questioning of citizens' loyalty based on their employer, charges of dysfunction aimed at Republican commissioners following the law, inconsistent application of the law, and many other questionable statements and actions during her tenure at the FEC.  

Of course, in her letter of resignation to President Trump and a 24-page exit report on "Dysfunction and Deadlock," she repeated the same trite campaign finance "reform" rhetoric perpetuated by the left despite being disproved by recent history:

Ravel’s resignation letter is filled with the same sort of tired Democratic rhetoric on campaign finance, demanding the overturning of Citizens United, pushing for expanded public (i.e., taxpayer) financing of political campaigns, and decrying the evils of “dark money.”  

Yet President Trump showed the complete intellectual bankruptcy of the campaign-finance “reform” movement in his stunning presidential-election victory. According to the FEC’s own data, among large donors ($2,000+), Hillary Clinton out-raised Trump $175 million to $27 million, a ratio of 6.5 to 1. Despite this, and the almost unanimous support she enjoyed from our media and cultural elites, Clinton couldn’t defeat Trump. Furthermore, Bernie Sanders, an eccentric and aging socialist with no establishment backing, came close to beating Hillary in the Democratic primary despite being outspent among those same $2,000+ donors by a ratio of more than 50 to 1. . . . 

The 2016 election was, for anyone who had eyes to see it, the most dramatic repudiation possible of the false notion that big donors determine the fate of our candidates or our politics. Given such facts, Ravel’s cri de coeur is more unintentional comedy than serious political analysis. But the media refuse to report it that way because to do so would be to repudiate their Democratic party allies, while casting a favorable light on the candidacy of Donald Trump, whom they loathe.​ 

But to keep the anti-Trump "reformers" from being too distraught about Ravel's departure, Ravel and her allies at the FEC have the strongly partisan, "resistance" altFEC Twitter feed, which, according to Ravel's friends at the Center for Public Integrity, "offers decidedly Ravel-esque, and often anti-Trump, critiques of the agency."  Recent tweets have been illuminating and have confirmed what many in the conservative community have long known and feared: that Democrats see "effective" speech regulation as a tool to oppose and hurt Republicans.

Even with the exit of Commissioner Ravel, no Republican or conservative speaker, especially those who must wade through the bureaucratic nightmare of an FEC complaint, can trust the FEC to act impartially while Democratic commissioners and "reform"-minded FEC staff sponsor explicitly anti-Republican messages and use campaign finance regulation as a tool to disadvantage Republicans.  Look for a post tomorrow on Ann Ravel's friend and ally at the FEC, Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.