To: Sam who wrote (421030 ) 10/17/2019 6:48:38 PM From: Sam Respond to Power Up: 'Just the tip of the iceberg.' Jacqueline Alemany In the Agencies 'TIP OF THE ICEBERG': It's a particularly busy time for the Federal Election Commission to be out of commission. “There may well be a lot of money that is slipping into our system that we just don’t know about,” Weintraub said in a Friday interview, a day after prosecutors accused Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman of scheming to funnel foreign money to U.S. politicians.But the FEC is effectively paralyzed: The agency in charge of enforcing campaign finance laws has not been able to conduct any formal business since the departure of its Republican vice chair in August. It needs a quorum to function — and Trump has yet to appoint a fourth commissioner. Weintraub, a Democrat who has chaired the commission three times since her 2002 appointment by President George W. Bush, is very concerned — and says voters should be, too. “When campaign finance issues are on the front pages of the newspaper every single day, this is a particularly bad time for the FEC not to have a quorum and not be able to respond to enforcement matters, not to be able to have new rulemaking or issue advisory opinions,” she told us.But Weintraub isn't going quietly. She wouldn't comment on the specifics of the charges against Parnas and Fruman, who also assisted in Rudolph W. Giuliani's shadow agenda on behalf of the president in Ukraine , but she stressed that “the ban on foreign money, obviously, is needed to make sure we have American elections for Americans.” The Russia connection: It remains a mystery where Parnas and Fruman got their money, our colleagues Roz Helderman, Josh Dawsey, Paul Sonne, and Tom Hamburger report. But “prosecutors alleged that Parnas and Fruman were backed in part by an unnamed Russian national who used them to funnel donations to state and federal candidates.”Parnas and Fruman were active GOP donors: “At least 14 Republican candidates and groups directly received a total of $675,500 in campaign contributions last year … from the Soviet-born Florida business executives, per the Wall Street Journal's Julie Bykowicz. And six of their donations, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, involved “either a shell company used to hide the men’s identities or foreign money meant to curry favor with U.S. politicians.” This total includes the $325,000 a pro-Trump super PAC received from the pair's company, Global Energy Producers. Why this matters: “Every single one of these contributions is suspect because they were made with an ulterior motive,” Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told the Journal.Weintraub slammed the idea of straw donors: “The ban on contributions in the name of another … is at the core of the FEC’s mission to ensure that the voters are informed about where the money is coming from and where it’s going and who politicians are indebted to.” Value in transparency: “If we have people giving in other people’s names then we lose that valuable information about who is the true source of the money,” she added. Weintraub also refused to answer whether Trump's calls for governments to investigate Biden actually broke any rules: “I’d rather not answer that question because it’s too close to the facts of an actual thing that could come before the commission in an enforcement context,” she said.But she says the laws surrounding foreign national cases are clear: “It is certainly illegal to solicit, accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election,” Weintraub told us. “That’s just black letter law.” The FEC chair had sharp words for Republicans lawmakers: Last week, the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee requested an ethics investigation into Weintraub. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) who was named honorary state chair for Trump's reelection campaign earlier this month, accused her of using government time and resources for “ideological, and at times political, purposes” — and to disparage the president.Weintraub, who originally responded that she would “not be silenced,” told Power Up: “It’s really remarkable how these supposedly deregulatory advocates suddenly don't like it so much — free speech isn’t so appealing when they don't like what you’re saying.” Weintraub warned that the FEC will eventually be back in action — and no politicians or would-be campaign violators should feel secure in the lull of enforcement power: “There is a five year statute of limitations so people should not think they can get away with everything,” Weintraub said. Update: This story has been updated to reflect that Weintraub did not comment specifically on the charges against the Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. washingtonpost.com
