The Clinton Cash Two-Step Hillary’s campaign plotted to raise money then attack opponents for raising money.
In an email exchange in May 2015, John Podesta, now the Clinton campaign chairman, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias and other staffers including Jennifer Palmieri and Huma Abedin discussed an article claiming the Federal Election Commission was unable to curb election abuses because its bipartisan makeup led to 3-3 deadlocks.
The campaign crew had been discussing the idea of stacking the FEC with new members to end the tie votes. In the meantime, “[Marc] Elias may have some legal ideas to slow them down,” Mr. Podesta wrote. “We have 3 things we have to do. Raise the primary $ by expanding the bundler network. Get Priorities functional. Use this [theme of FEC dysfunction] to scare our people into giving bigger sums.”
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook responded, “I agree with you, John. I think we focus hard on raising as much as we can and then throw the kitchen sink at everyone who we believe steps over the line, understanding that has limited impact.”
Marc Elias responded that he thought the article overstated the problem but noted that, “There is every reason to think DOJ will increasingly police the campaign finance laws.” He added, “Every time a GOP candidate does something even close to the line, they are hit by a complaint.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Elias added, if the goal is to find new legal techniques to slow down conservative groups, he had an idea. “[T]here is one legal tool we could use that might slow them down. The law has a little noticed or used provision that says that if a complaint has been filed and it is either dismissed or not acted upon within 120 days the entity that filed the complaint can sue the FEC to force it to proceed with enforcement. If the FEC fails to move forward, then the complainant is permitted to bring their own lawsuit to enforce the law directly.”
That is, they could gin up a campaign among progressives to start suing conservative groups. A few days later, on May 7, 2015, Mr. Mook emailed to request a call with Hillary Clinton to discuss topics including “FEC enforcement options.”
To sum up, the Clinton brain trust plotted to raise as much money as possible under current campaign laws, which they certainly have. As everyone has reported, no candidate in history has raised more big money from more rich donors than Mrs. Clinton has. But having cashed in themselves, the Clinton campaign then plotted to use the government’s campaign-finance enforcement machinery to harass their opponents for raising money.
And sure enough, the political left has ginned up a media campaign to change the FEC, and the Justice Department announced intensified scrutiny of campaign fundraising. We criticized both moves, and we hope that has helped deter some nasty partisan abuse.
One of the many reasons we oppose limits on campaign donations is that politicians inevitably use them to punish their opponents. The Clinton campaign emails show this calculation in especially cynical form.
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