A conservative group, The Coolidge Reagan Foundation, just filed a lawsuit against the Hillary Clinton’S campaign and others for allegedly breaking campaign finance laws.
The lawsuit alleges the Clinton’S campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC) accepted something of value from a foreign national and thus broke the law.
The Washington Times reported that a conservative nonprofit has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Clinton’s campaign of violating election laws when it paid British citizen Christopher Steele to gather Kremlin-provided political dirt on candidate Donald Trump.
“[Hillary for America] and the DNC paid Christopher Steele, a foreign national, to generate the Steele dossier, based primarily on lies and fabrications from current and former Russian government officials and other foreign nationals,” the Coolidge Reagan lawsuit states. “To mask their key role in funding the dossier, HFA and the DNC funneled their payments through their law firm, Perkins Coie, and failed to properly report the purposes of those payments to the FEC as required by federal law.”
The Coolidge-Reagan complaint cites what it considers three violations of election laws by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
First, the foundation alleges that the Clinton campaign, in its FEC spending reports, concealed money going to Christopher Steele. The campaign listed the funds as “legal services” to Perkins Coie.
States the complaint: “By using Perkins Coie as a straw man intermediary for this pervasively political, non-legal work, [Hillary for America] and the DNC were able to mask their relationship to Fusion GPS from the public in the critical weeks before the 2016 presidential election, in direct violation of federal campaign finance law.”
“This intentionally false reporting would allow HFA and the DNC to disavow any potentially embarrassing or controversial activities in which Fusion GPS engaged.”
Second, the complaint alleges that Mr. Steele, as a foreign national, was prevented by law from contributing “any thing of value,” (the phrase Ms. Weintraub used) to a campaign. The foundation alleges that the Kremlin gossip he collected was “anything of value.”
“Steele, a foreign national, solicited numerous other foreign nationals, including but not limited to Russian citizens and current and former members of the Russian government and Russian intelligence services, for things of value,” Coolidge Reagan alleges.
And third, Mr. Steele was so involved in trying to sell his allegations to reporters in D.C. that he actually was making campaign decisions. It’s against the law for foreigner nationals to take on that role in U.S. elections.
“Compiled from lies, innuendo, and fabrications from foreign nationals, the dossier itself was a vehicle through which current and former agents of the Russian government were able to attempt to undermine Donald Trump’s candidacy,” the complaint alleges.
