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Wednesday, January 03, 2018

Wikileaks - One email thread. Why note it now? Why not?

This link.

UPDATE: WaPo, here:

Elias declined to comment.

In September, he accompanied former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to a closed-door interview with Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, during which Podesta said he had no knowledge of payments to Fusion GPS, according to CNN.

At the time, it was not publicly known Elias had hired Fusion GPS; that was revealed by The Washington Post this week. Elias, who was there as Podesta’s lawyer, did not participate in the interview as a witness, CNN reported.

Podesta did not respond to a request for comment.

While it is common for campaigns to conduct opposition research, Elias’s decision to hire Fusion GPS has drawn intense interest because it resulted in the controversial dossier. Republicans have said their effort to investigate Fusion’s role in producing the dossier will intensify with the revelation that it was funded by Clinton’s campaign and the DNC.

Elias represented Franken in the Franken-Coleman election recount, and Franken was a particular target of lechery allegations. Whether those are dots to connect or unrelated information is unclear.

FURTHER: The cited WaPo item has a host of links for interested readers.

Subsequent to the above quote the item continued:

In 2015, Elias appeared before the FEC to seek greater interplay between candidates and super PACs, which can collected un­limited contributions. Critics saw it as a way around campaign finance laws that set a strict cap on donations to candidates.

Then-commissioner Ann Ravel, a Democratic appointee, objected to the idea — and was “berated” by Elias, who said she should have raised her concerns earlier, she said in an interview. A key element of the measure passed by a 4-to-2 vote, with Ravel in opposition.

“He was always trying to figure out a way to get around” campaign finance restrictions, Ravel said.

Veteran election law attorney Robert Bauer, who founded the Perkins Coie political practice and recruited Elias, said that anyone practicing political law “cannot escape the politics.”

“It understood that your clients, and their objectives, will come under fire,” Bauer said. “But it is wrong to find fault in a lawyer because he is effective in making the client’s case for a particular law or rule.”

Another WaPo item notes:

The national political parties are urging wealthy backers to give them 10 times more money than was allowed in the last presidential election, taking advantage of looser restrictions to pursue ­million-dollar donors with zeal.

Under the new plans, which have not been disclosed publicly, the top donation tier for the Republican National Committee has soared to $1.34 million per couple this election cycle. Democratic contributors, meanwhile, are being hit up for even more — about $1.6 million per couple — to support the party’s convention and a separate joint fundraising effort between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.

[...] For Clinton, in particular, participating in the new fundraising regime may complicate her call for an overhaul of the campaign finance system — one she renewed Saturday at the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention in Manchester.

Last week, her campaign filed paperwork vastly expanding its joint fundraising committee with the DNC to include 33 state parties — making her the only 2016 candidate on either side so far to set up such a vehicle.

[...] oth the RNC and DNC are taking advantage of a measure slipped into a December spending bill that vastly expanded how much national parties can raise by allowing them to collect high-level donations for separate accounts to finance their presidential conventions, building renovations and legal proceedings.

That means that along with $33,400 that a donor can give this year to a party, he or she can give $300,600 more to the additional accounts — a tenfold increase. And a single contributor can give the same amounts again next year, meaning a couple could give a total of $1.34 million during the 2016 election.

The provision was crafted behind the scenes by leaders of both parties with the help of leading campaign finance attorneys, including Marc Elias, now serving as general counsel of Clinton’s campaign. Elias did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition, Clinton’s campaign is now asking donors to give up to $366,100 this year to the Hillary Victory Fund. Her campaign gets $2,700 of that for the primary, while the rest goes to the DNC and 33 state party committees, which can use the funds immediately.

Although past candidates — including President Obama — set up such joint fundraising accounts, they faced a cap on how many committees could be involved. There’s no such limit now thanks to the McCutcheon decision, which did away with the annual contribution limit to candidates and parties.

[...] Advocates for reducing the influence of big donors on politics are dismayed.

“This is a return to the old system of using the parties as vehicles to launder the buying and selling of government influence and decisions,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of the group Democracy 21.

Another WaPo item reports:

DNC officials were muted in their response to the report that party funds had been used to underwrite Steele’s research.

A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), who was DNC chairwoman at the time Perkins Coie contracted with Fusion, said Wednesday the former chair was “not aware” of the law firm’s arrangement with Fusion.

Federal Election Commission records show that the Clinton campaign paid the Perkins Coie law firm $5.6 million in legal fees from June 2015 to December 2016, according to campaign finance records, and the DNC paid the firm $3.6 million in “legal and compliance consulting’’ since November 2015. Some of those total fees were apparently paid to Fusion GPS.

Former top aides to Clinton and the DNC were reluctant to discuss the arrangement Wednesday, but several spoke on the condition of anonymity to defend it.

[red highlighting added]

Bernie got screwed.

Bernie would have won.

Who is or is not a dirtbag in all this? You decide.