Lies And Fraud In The Libertarian Party
Criticism
The Good of the Party
by R. W. Bradford
It's time for Libertarians to minimize the damage done to their party.
There is a delightful vignette in the 1967 film Guide for the Married Man, in which a middle-aged woman discovers her husband in flagrante delicto with a young woman. As she screams hysterically, her husband and the young woman get out of bed and put their clothes on without saying a word. The young woman leaves, and the man puts on his smoking jacket, calmly lights his pipe, and sits down in his easy chair. He continues to ignore her screams. Eventually, she quiets down, and, as the vignette ends, the woman is wondering whether she had actually seen her husband in bed with another woman.
I am reminded of this scene when I look at the Harry Browne campaign’s response during the past two months to the discovery that despite Libertarian Party rules and his explicit promises to the party’s National Committee, LP National Director Perry Willis secretly worked for Browne when he was running for the party’s presidential nomination in early 1996.
The Browne strategy is obvious: don’t say a word and hope the whole thing blows over. Maybe LP members will simply forget the campaign’s flaunting the LP’s rules by conspiring with the party’s top employee to work secretly to secure Browne the party’s 1996 presidential nomination.
On June 10, LP Chairman Jim Lark began his investigation by e-mailing identical queries to Harry Browne, and the top officials in his campaign — chair David Bergland and manager Sharon Ayres (Bergland’s wife) — and consultant Jack Dean, through whom the campaign had laundered its payments to Willis. He asked them all the same questions: did you know about Willis’ secret work on behalf of Browne prior to April 21, when evidence that Willis had done that work was presented to the LNC? If you did, when did you know about it? And under what circumstances? Two days later, he e-mailed Michael Cloud, the campaign’s projects director, asking the same questions. Ten days later, he e-mailed Willis.
Only one of those six people responded — Browne, who e-mailed Lark suggesting that they talk. Lark called Browne on the evening of June 20. The conversation was amiable but brief: Browne told Lark that he would not cooperate with the investigation. The e-mail to Michael Cloud bounced back, and Willis, Ayres, Bergland, and Dean did not respond at all.
On July 9, Lark followed up with another e-mail to the Browne brain trust, this time asking them at least to acknowledge that they had received the message. Only Bergland responded, tersely e-mailing, "Message received."
Meanwhile, Willis and Browne continued their activities — sending out fund-raising appeals for their two new endeavors, Real Campaign Reform and the American Liberty Foundation — as if nothing had happened.
The Browne campaign response didn’t start out so quietly. Documentary evidence of the campaign’s fraud was revealed to National Committee members on April 21. Three weeks later, Willis responded with a 20-page memo to the National Committee, explaining that his violation of the terms of his employment contract and his lying about it for more than five years were necessary in order for Browne to get the party’s nomination, which itself was necessary for the party’s growth and prosperity.
For the most part, members were outraged by Willis’ actions and had little interest in his ends-justify-the-means defense. Two days later, Browne himself sent an e-mail to party activists, urging them to refrain from discussing the issue until things had cooled down, so that they wouldn’t be embarrassed by "shooting from the hip" and saying things that they "may come to realize you may not have thought through." He promised that he would have something to say about the matter "in a few days."
On that same day, Browne answered an e-mail from former party chair Mary Gingell. She had asked him whether he "concur[red] with Perry’s opinion that violating the LP conflict of interest rules in 1996 in order to help the Browne for President campaign is justifiable." Browne exchanged pleasantries with her, repeated that he would "be issuing a statement in the next couple of days," and answered her question: "I was aware of Perry’s actions and agreed to them."
Browne quickly came to regret this. A week later, Gingell’s husband, LP National Committee member Joe Dehn, revealed the contents of Browne’s message at a meeting of the party’s Executive Committee, which was sufficiently impressed to the extent that it passed a resolution that directed the party’s staff "not to enter into any business relationships" with "Browne or Willis or any entity of which either of them is an officer, director, or employee without prior approval of the Executive Committee."
It was apparently at this point that the Browne campaign decided that the best course was to stonewall. Browne, Ayres, Bergland, Willis, and Dean have refused to utter a word in public on the subject. The sole break in this wall of silence has been Michael Cloud, who has twice discussed the case with me. He has been careful to reveal nothing directly about Willis’ or the campaign’s wrongdoing, but has had rather a lot to say about Lark’s investigation.
I first spoke with Cloud on June 29, at which time he had not yet been contacted by Lark. He nevertheless characterized Lark’s investigation as a "petty inquisition," and suggested the LNC’s attitude was like that of "the Russians — you’re guilty until proven innocent." He talked mostly about the good that Willis had done the party, and about how bad Willis’ longtime critics are. Agreeing with Willis’ speculation that former party secretary and computer manager John Famularo had acquired the evidence of Willis’ wrongdoing from Willis’ computer at the LP headquarters, he characterized this as "the second Watergate burglary."
On July 16, I interviewed Cloud again. He was still not willing to cooperate with the LNC’s "star chamber proceedings," or to answer any questions about who Willis had conspired with inside the 1996 Browne campaign. But he was willing to discuss other aspects of the case. He described his conversation with Chairman Lark the day before:
Lark said ‘I’ve been unable to reach you and I’ve got some questions about the 96 presidential campaign’ . . . I said ‘Perhaps if John Famularo would like to burglarize the Watergate one more time he might be able to get all kinds of new juicy information. Perhaps I should give him a dial-up number so he can burglarize my computer.’ And Jim says ‘Now wait a minute. You know, that could be libelous and slanderous.’ I said ‘Tell him to sue me.’ ‘Then we’ll go through what’s called discovery and I’ll find out everything he’s got. I want him to sue me. Give him my home number. Give him my address.’
Cloud also suggested that perhaps Willis should not have admitted that the invoice Famularo had distributed to the LNC was genuine. "If Perry had said ‘produce the evidence that is valid,’ Famularo would’ve had to admit where he got it — probably this is pilfered goods. My guess is that he would be in a load of trouble."
Why the Silence?
It’s obvious that Jack Dean was part of the conspiracy, since he laundered the secret payments that were made to Willis. Continuing his career as a professional Libertarian will be difficult for him, and will depend pretty much on the prosperity of Browne’s new non-profit organizations, both of which would be hurt badly by further revelations about the extent of corruption within the management of the Browne campaign.
It is certain that at least one person among Browne’s management team knew who conspired with Willis, and it is very likely that more than one did. If Browne, Ayres, Bergland, Cloud, Willis, or Dean tell what they know about the conspiracy to undermine the LP’s rules, those who were involved will almost certainly face unpleasant consequences.
Both Browne and Willis earn their livings by raising funds from LP members. They operate non-profit organizations that depend heavily on such fund-raising. If they can no longer advertise in the LP News or rent the party’s mailing list, they will be hard pressed to maintain the flow of money that pays their salaries. Michael Cloud is in a similar position as CEO of Carla Howell’s campaigns in Massachusetts.
Ayres and Bergland, both longtime party activists, are in a slightly different situation. Ayres was the campaign’s manager and treasurer at the same time she was a member of the National Committee, the very entity whose explicit rules Willis violated and to whom Willis repeatedly lied. If she had been aware of his wrongdoing and deceit and had remained silent at the LNC meetings, she would obviously have breached the trust that party members and her LNC colleagues placed in her. Her career as a LP activist would be over, and she would have to go a long way to find another high-paying position as a campaign manger.
Bergland’s position is equally uncomfortable. In 1998 he was elected to the party’s chairmanship after a very bitter campaign in which charges of the Browne campaign’s secret collusion with Willis were raised and denied. If he had known of Willis’ violation and deception when it occurred, he would have known of it during that campaign and while serving as chair from 1998–2000. Presumably a chair who was a party to such deception of his own party would no longer be held in much esteem by its members. His career as an LP activist and power-broker would be over.
We know that the management team held frequent, lengthy conference calls. This strongly suggests that all knew what was going on. We also know that Browne himself customarily has participated in drafting fund-raising letters, the very work Willis secretly did for the Browne campaign. This strongly suggests that Browne knew. And now, thanks to the information released to Liberty on July 14, we have good reason to believe that Browne himself worked closely with Willis on these particular fund-raisers.
So the Browne campaign team had little choice. Once it became evident that most LP members would not accept Willis’ argument that he was justified to conspire with the Browne campaign to get around party rules that prohibited him from both serving as the party’s highest employee and working on behalf of aspirants to the party’s presidential nomination, revealing the identities of the co-conspirators within the Browne campaign could only bring down Browne and his top managers.
And so, they began their silent campaign, hoping that the LNC and the party members would overlook their transgression. Willis, Cloud and Browne hope to go on with their fundraising. Ayres and Bergland hope to remain powerful figures within the party.
Refusing to answer questions about the campaign, while attacking the investigation is a desperate ploy. But desperate times call for desperate measures. In the end, the truth will come out, and unless somehow the Browne camp is able to convince its past supporters that deceiving other libertarians and conspiring to subvert their own party is a good thing — an unlikely prospect — all it does is buy them time for additional fundraising among those who haven’t yet learned of their deceit.
The Good of the Party
I think it’s safe to say that everyone involved wishes that Willis had never conspired with Browne to violate the LP’s rules and policies. Surely, Browne and Willis realize by now that if he’d hired Willis outright and the LP had hired another National Director, Browne would still have won his party’s nomination. Surely Browne supporters wish that the man they so admire had not done this; prior to this scandal, many had considered his integrity unimpeachable. Even Browne’s critics wish this hadn’t happened, for they too realize that a scandal like this reflects badly on their party.
Nevertheless the facts remain. If the party is to maintain its self-respect, it must discover the identities of all who were party to the conspiracy and take appropriate action, both for the sake of justice and to avoid setting a bad precedent that this sort of behavior will be tolerated so long as membership and fundraising grow. The actions of the wrongdoers not only vitiated, and continues to vitiate, a lot of energy and resources that could have been put to far better use, they also undermined, and continue to undermine, the moral authority of a party that proudly calls itself "The Party of Principle."
If the conspirators show genuine remorse, of course, the party should consider lesser penalty, perhaps just simple censure and a moratorium on further business dealing with the party. But if the Browne management team maintain their refusal to answer the entirely appropriate questions that Chairman Lark has asked them, I think the party will have no choice but to take legal action or to censure them harshly and ban all future business dealings with all of them.
But there is one thing the party cannot afford to do: it cannot afford to merely sweep the matter under the rug by leaving his Willis’ co-conspirators unidentified. Nor can it let the guilty off with mere censure. To merely slap their hands would set a terrible precedent for future employees of the LP. And it would cost the party its soul.
The business of the Libertarian Party is to advance the cause of freedom by contesting elections to public office. It needs to get back to that business. But it must first make clear that it will not tolerate candidates or employees who conspire to subvert the party’s integrity.
A few days ago, a friend of more than twenty years, who had read about the LP scandal, asked me, "Why are you involved in a party like this, anyway?"
I answered, "Because the LP is not a party like this. This is an aberration, and my fellow Libertarians will not put up with it. The Libertarian Party is the party of principle. It does not make corrupt bargains, like the other parties do. It stands for honesty, integrity and human liberty."
I hope that I will always be able to answer in the same way.
Liberty, September 2001, © Copyright 2001, Liberty Foundation
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