American Greatness: Congress Pursues Clinton for Hiding Fusion GPS Payments

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As I reported here, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission last year alleging that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign finance laws by not revealing their payments to Fusion GPS. In an October 25, 2017 filing with the FEC, the watchdog group accused the Hillary for America campaign and DNC of failing to “accurately disclose the purpose and recipient of payments for the dossier…effectively hiding these payments from public scrutiny.” The complaint was filed one day after the Washington Post confirmed that both entities paid Perkins Coie – a politically-connected law firm – to retain Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump, which resulted in the infamous dossier.

According to the Center, the Clinton campaign and DNC paid Perkins Coie more than $12 million during the 2016 election cycle; all payments were recorded as “legal services.” No payments to Fusion GPS were itemized on disclosure reports by either group. Corey Goldstone, a spokesman for the Campaign Legal Center, told me via email that “normally, a campaign files a report with the FEC listing the people and companies it paid money to and what that money was for. The Clinton campaign and the DNC did not comply with their legal obligation to disclose their payments to Fusion for opposition research. Instead, they concealed the fact that any payments were made to Fusion at all.” Goldstone said the complaint is still pending at the FEC.

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