Shortly after the most recent GOP debate, Carly Fiorina appeared on MSNBC and accused Hillary Clinton of having broken the law, adding:
“Mrs. Clinton wants to go to the White House — she’s qualified for the big house. She should be prosecuted.”
Well now the Karma Train has pulled into Fiorina Station, and it has a nasty surprise for Carly: It appears she has also broken the law.
The International Business Times reports that they have obtained email evidence proving that Carly for America (Fiorina’s super PAC), has been unlawfully coordinating with campaign stops where Fiorina has been speaking. This is in direct violation of FEC laws, which specify that it is illegal for super PACS to coordinate with campaigns for any reason. But it sure as hell didn’t prevent Fiornia and her staff from blatantly ignoring these restrictions.
Over the years, various campaigns have tried to find loopholes in the FEC laws. One of the most popular is for a candidate to wait before formally announcing a presidential runs in order to finance their campaigns early on. This was the approach taken in 2015 by Jeb Bush. But Fiorina has upped the ante in this regard. Her super PAC now handles all the functions at her campaign stops that a campaign would normally be in control of.
However, what makes Fiorina and her Super PAC’s actions illegal is that her Super PAC is directly organizing the campaign events, as newly released emails show. There were a handful of emails between employees at Winthrop University in South Carolina–where Fiorina had an event in September of 2015), staff for the Fiorina campaign, and Carly for America. The emails also prove that when an employee had trouble getting in touch with Fiorina about correcting details on an Eventbrite website for the event, that employee then decided to reach out directly to Taylor Manson, a super PAC employee, who just so happened to be listed as a person of contact on the Eventbrite page.
So has Fiorina broken the law? Larry Noble, a former FEC counsel who works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, says there is no doubt that the law has been directly violated:
“This fits the larger narrative that the super PAC is basically running the campaign’s events. The whole thing frankly makes a mockery of the law.”
Perhaps Carly would now like to retract her attack on Hillary Clinton? Seems unlikely, I realize, but maybe she can explain all of this to a federal grand jury.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.