Appeals court rules Clinton, super PAC coordinated to skirt FEC rules, same thing Trump was targeted for

WASHINGTON, DC - It’s called selective enforcement. When rotund Manhattan District Attorney concocted a case against former President Donald Trump over $130,000 in alleged campaign finance violations, liberals and their mainstream media sycophants claimed that Trump’s conviction of 34 “felonies” in the so-called “hush money” case proved that “no one is above the law.” That is, unless your name is Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

Last week and completely under the radar, a federal appeals court ruled that Clinton’s 2016 campaign and a liberal super PAC violated campaign finance violations in an amount 45X greater than what Trump was accused of, according to the Washington Examiner. 

In its decision, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Clinton and the super PAC, Correct the Record, used an “internet exemption” to workaround restrictions to set up a “Benghazi Hearing War Room” tasked with conducting a witch hunt of critics without reporting it as a campaign expense. 

In a post on X, the Western Journal contrasted what the Clinton campaign did and what Trump was accused of doing. In Trump’s case, payments were made through his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, as part of a nondisclosure agreement between Trump and adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The Department of Justice declined to prosecute Trump, and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) found no violations of campaign finance law. 

However Bragg, assisted by an attorney who resigned from the Biden Justice Department to “get” Trump, brought a case under a vague New York law, which resurrected so-called campaign finance violations and morphed them into felonies under a New York State business record violation. The former president was convicted of those 34 felonies in a case and trial that was by all standards constitutionally questionable. 

Bragg alleged that the payments made to Cohen were listed by the Trump organization (not the president, by the way) as legal expenses, while Bragg categorized the payments made to Daniels as an illegal contribution to Trump’s presidential campaign. 

The complaint against Clinton and Correct the Record was spurred by the Campaign Legal Center, “a non-partisan organization that advocates for every eligible voter to meaningfully participate in the democratic process…” The organization alleges that the super PAC spent “up to $9 million to coordinate activities with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, with neither entity reporting these funds as in-kind contributions in its FEC filings.” 

The arrangement was illegal, CLC alleges, noting that “independent expenditure groups like super PACs, as a condition of their status, pledge not to coordinate their spending with candidates’ campaigns.” 

In 2019, the complaint was dismissed through a deadlock vote, ruling that the coordinated spending between the Clinton campaign and the super PAC fell under an “internet exemption” for “unpaid” communications made for online distribution, CLC wrote. 

CLC challenged that decision, and has been tied up in litigation for five years, arguing that the coordination between the two entities, such as opposition research, training campaign spokespeople, and press outreach, were not limited to web-based activities. 

The ruling last week affirms a previous ruling in December 2022 by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia which found that the FEC acted “contrary to the law” by dismissing CLC’s initial complaint, while directing the FEC to take action on the complaint. 

Based on the new ruling, the FEC is bound to create standards for interpreting its coordination rules and the ‘internet exemption,” while also considering whether to investigate and enforce the law in response to violations identified by CLC. 

In the new ruling, the D.C. Circuit ruled that Correct the Record “set out to engage in a wide range of coordinated activities to support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.” 

“In an administrative complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission, nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center alleges that Correct the Record spent close to $6 million in coordination with the Clinton campaign during the lead up to the 2016 election, including to conduct polls, hire teams of round-the-clock fact checkers, and connect Clinton media surrogates with radio and television news outlets,” the Court ruled. 

The three judge panel continued, finding that Correct the Record coordinated all the above activities with Clinton’s campaign. 

“But it characterized all of the committee's myriad expenditures–from staff salaries and travel expenses to the cost of commissioning polls and renting offices–as ‘inputs’ to unpaid communications over the internet. For that reason, neither Correct the Record nor the Clinton campaign designated any of Correct the Record’s expenditures as contributions to the campaign,” the ruling said. 

So, long story short, Correct the Record did basically the same exact thing Trump was convicted of, however on a much larger scale, so-called FEC “business record” violations. 

The court further wrote:

“We hold that the Commission [FEC] acted contrary to law in dismissing the complaint. Because we conclude that the internet exemption cannot be read to exempt from disclosure those expenditures that are only tangentially related to an eventual internet message or post, the Commission’s reading of the internet exemption stretches it beyond lawful limits.

“As to those expenditures that it deemed not to be covered by the internet exemption, the Commission acted contrary to law in dismissing the complaining for want of reason to believe the relevant expenditures were coordinated with the campaign, despite plausible allegations that Correct the Record coordinated all its expenditures with Hillary For America–and openly acknowledged doing so.” 

The Appeals panel upheld a federal district court’s ruling that reached the same conclusions and ordered the FEC to comply with the judge’s decision. 

In a separate issue that also flew under the radar when it happened, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee agreed in 2022 to pay $113,000 to settle another FEC investigation alleging campaign finance law violations relative to funding the Steele dossier used to begin the Russia collusion witch hunt against Trump, as reported at the time by the Associated Press. From the piece:

“The Clinton campaign hired Perkins Coie, which then hired Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on Republican candidate Donalt Trump’s ties to Russia. But on FEC forms, the Clinton campaign classified the spending as legal services.” 

Sound familiar? That is specifically the violation Bragg had Trump prosecuted for. Yet in the case of Clinton and the DNC, they only had to pay a $113,000 administrative fine. No gag orders. No jail time. Nada. 

“The internet exemption was never intended as a [Federal Election Campaign Act]-swallowing loophole enabling political committees to launder all their coordinated expenditures via unpaid internet postings,” the court said. 

In Trump’s case, his defense made the same point the Clinton campaign and DNC made, arguing that the payments had been described accurately in Trump’s case to reimburse Cohen for funds paid to Daniels as part of a legally-binding contract, a non-disclosure agreement. 

In the latest ruling by the Court of Appeals, neither Clinton nor David Brock, founder of Correct the Record will be punished for committing a violation over 40 times worse than what Trump was accused of. The case is merely going back to the FEC to fix the exemption claimed by Clinton and the super PAC. 

Regardless of the Court’s decision, FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, a Democrat, remained defiant and said he will fight for a “robust” exemption for online political activities. 

“Following the D.C. Circuit’s decision today, my colleagues and I will carefully review the court’s opinion and consider next steps, including whether to seek review in the Supreme Court. Regardless, I will continue to fight for internet freedom at the FEC and a robust regulatory exemption for political activities online, consistent with the law,” he said. 

Brock admitted in 2016 that his new group would coordinate with the Clinton campaign and use an “internet exemption” to skirt campaign finance rules. It was almost as though they knew what they were doing and trying to subvert the law. 

Former FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, a longtime champion of the internet exemption, was relieved that the court saved the internet exemption–for now. 

“It did appear that the Clinton campaign and Correct the Record tried to place too much weight and force too many far-flung political activities, onto the internet exemption,” he said. “The entire internet exemption was at risk under that kind of weight, but the court preserved the internet exemption. So the most important result of this court decision is that the internet exemption remains intact for organizations to speak freely on the internet,” Goodman continued.

“The court sent the matter back to the commission to clarify which input costs are directly related to the production and dissemination of free internet communications, like staff time and production costs, versus costs that are only tangentially related to internet communications. I’m confident the commission can draw reasonable distinctions and provide clear guidance to protect free speech on the internet,” Goodman said. 

So once again, Hillary Clinton dodges prosecution for committing the same “offense” that a Republican, in this case Donald Trump, was accused of. That follows on her being overlooked for prosecution by former FBI Director James Comey for destruction of evidence when she destroyed hard drives implicating her of being in possession of classified materials on private servers.