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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (35253)	1/15/2004 11:56:12 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Illegal Attorney General? Groups Urge Probe Of Ashcroft's '00 Bid Five public interest groups have asked the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to open a criminal investigation of election law violations allegedly committed by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's campaign during his unsuccessful 2000 Senate reelection campaign. In a letter released yesterday, the groups asked Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey Jr. to appoint the special counsel, citing the Federal Election Commission's decision Dec. 12 that Ashcroft's campaign violated election laws by accepting illegal contributions from a committee Ashcroft had established to explore running for president. Garrett M. Lott, treasurer for the two Ashcroft committees, the Spirit of America PAC and Ashcroft 2000, agreed last month to pay a $37,000 fine for at least four violations of federal campaign laws and agreed "not to contest" the charges. The FEC has authority for civil enforcement of election laws. Only the Justice Department can investigate and prosecute possible criminal violations of the federal election and financial disclosure statutes. In the letter, John C. Bonifaz, executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute, cited "the appearance of impropriety that would arise if . . . the Department of Justice either were to refuse to investigate evidence of felonies and misdemeanors committed by the attorney general, his former campaign committee, and his leadership PAC, or were to allow the attorney general to investigate himself and his campaign officials." Also signing the letter were Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen; Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; Nick Nyhart, executive director of Public Campaign Action Fund; and Stephanie Moore, executive director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project. Mark Corallo, Ashcroft's spokesman, said yesterday he had not seen the letter and had no comment on it. "As with all such letters," he said, "we will review it." Under the law, the Spirit of America PAC was allowed to give the Ashcroft 2000 committee $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election, which it did. The commission found that the Spirit of America PAC far exceeded these limits by illegally transferring to the Ashcroft 2000 committee $110,000 derived from the rental of its donors list. The FEC general counsel's brief in the case noted that although Ashcroft was described as owner of the PAC mailing list, his 1998 and 1999 Senate financial disclosure reports did not disclose the rental income generated by the lists. Bonifaz wrote that this failure was a violation of law and represented "probable cause" to suspect that Ashcroft failed to disclose the list in the financial disclosure statements he files as attorney general. "The evidence outlined in this letter," Bonifaz said, "presents an 'actual conflict of interest' for Attorney General Ashcroft, a conflict which includes a 'financial interest.' " Another aspect of the case is the role of Jack Oliver, now deputy finance chairman of the Bush-Cheney '04 reelection committee. Oliver, who was executive director of Ashcroft's PAC, was deposed by FEC investigators last February because his signature appears with Ashcroft's on a controversial work product agreement under which ownership of the mailing list was transferred to the then-senator, according to documents released in December by the FEC. Bonifaz's organization was one of three groups that filed the initial complaint with the FEC in March 2001 after The Washington Post published an article on the arrangement. His group pursued the complaint, filing a lawsuit to compel the FEC to act on it, which resulted in the December settlement. washingtonpost.com lurqer