[EL] An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct

Fri Jan 19 09:50:02 PST 2018

Interestingly enough, the NAACP was also concerned about a “broken democracy” when it went to the U.S. Supreme Court to insist that the disclosure of its members would be an intolerable intrusion on First Amendment rights.

Best,

Sean

From: Eric J Segall [mailto:esegall at gsu.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 12:47 PM
To: Sean Parnell <sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>
Cc: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>; Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com>; Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct

I’m sensitive to the concerns of the wealthy wanting to donate to charities anonymously. I’m much more worried about our completely broken democracy.

Best,

Eric
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 19, 2018, at 12:43 PM, Sean Parnell <sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org<mailto:sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>> wrote:
Well, and brining this back to my area of work, philanthropic giving and charities, I and others concerned about the ability of philanthropists to give anonymously to charity would probably have some issues with the definition of “election-related activity.” For example, my pastor this past Sunday made what would have in some legislation I’ve seen proposed been an “electioneering communication” if he’d said it at a different time of year and it had been about the governor rather than the President. So long as “electioneering communication” means, in one way or another, any reference to a candidate in a specified time period, regardless of whether it is an attempt to influence an election, you’re not going to get a lot of interest in the vastly-expanded disclosure regime that you want.

Best,

Sean

From: Rick Hasen [mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 12:28 PM
To: Sean Parnell <sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org<mailto:sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>>; Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com<mailto:jeffhauser at gmail.com>>
Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Subject: Re: [EL] An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct

That seems like a pretty good argument for Congress to pass improved disclosure laws, regardless of the tax status of a particular organization, for any organization or person who spends or contributes BIG money (I’d raise thresholds dramatically) on election-related activity (we can discuss how that is best defined, but at least extending electioneering communications to digital ads seems like a good start).

This way we know where the ultimate source of money is, without allowing the kind of shell games to go on.

From: Sean Parnell <sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org<mailto:sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>>
Date: Friday, January 19, 2018 at 9:22 AM
To: Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com<mailto:jeffhauser at gmail.com>>, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>>
Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Subject: RE: [EL] An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct

And the same goes for the public, of course, who would only see “We’re Totally Not The Russians LLC” listed on whatever form of disclosure is envisioned by Ciara and others in the “reform” community.

Sean

From: Jeff Hauser [mailto:jeffhauser at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 12:11 PM
To: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>>
Cc: Sean Parnell <sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org<mailto:sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>>; Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Subject: Re: [EL] An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct

Michael Cohen has been alleged by the Wall Street Journal to create an LLC to pay off an actress aleged to have an affair with Trump: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lawyer-used-private-company-pseudonyms-to-pay-porn-star-stormy-daniels-1516315731?utm_source=The+Point+with+Chris+Cillizza+Alerts&utm_campaign=d827904afa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ada7c7ac0a-d827904afa-83775533<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Ftrump-lawyer-used-private-company-pseudonyms-to-pay-porn-star-stormy-daniels-1516315731%3Futm_source%3DThe%2BPoint%2Bwith%2BChris%2BCillizza%2BAlerts%26utm_campaign%3Dd827904afa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_19%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_ada7c7ac0a-d827904afa-83775533&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=PgF9%2FV6dIeZhVXoba5D63mdIIA9b5gAjiv73Ck67s4E%3D&reserved=0>

If Russians created shell companies in Delaware to give money to the NRA, all the IRS would see is "Delaware LLC."

(the NRA would presumably make inquiries about any unexpected contributions, and I doubt they lack information on who is giving them big money)

On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 11:59 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
Has the NRA issued any public statements denying the receipt of money from Russian government sources/sources allied with Russian government which were used by its c4 for election-related activity?

From: Sean Parnell <sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org<mailto:sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>>
Date: Friday, January 19, 2018 at 8:55 AM
To: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>>, Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Subject: re: An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct

I wanted to clear up what some might mistakenly infer from the piece by Ciara Torres-Spelliscy linked to below concerning the latest speculation regarding foreign money, Donald Trump, and those pesky Russians (hold on a sec, it appears the 1980’s are calling and wish to talk to me about something). She writes:

For many years now, good-government groups and campaign finance experts have warned that illegal foreign funds could be hiding in that dark money.

That’s because, in federal races, political spenders that go dark are exploiting a loophole between the campaign finance system overseen by the FEC, which typically insists on that all donors to campaigns identify themselves, and charities the Internal Revenue Service allows to collect funds donated anonymously.

Three things:

  1.  The National Rifle Association is not a “charity,” at least as defined by the IRS. It’s a 501c4 “social welfare” organization (it does have an associated foundation, which is a 501c3, but I don’t believe it’s alleged that this entity was funding any political ads, let alone Russian-funded ads).
  2.  While the NRA and other 501c organizations do not reveal donors to the public, they do reveal them to the IRS (or at least are required to) on Schedule B. Presumably, if there is a concern that the NRA took in millions of dollars from Russian sources (whether state or “private” to the extent there’s any distinction in Russia), it should be relatively easy for the FBI to get the information from the IRS (I’m not sure if it requires a subpoena or not in this particular instance, but law enforcement is able to get confidential tax records). I’d guess that someone at the NRA handed a few million dollars by a Putin pal would have realized this and handed it back, if such a highly-speculative transaction occurred, but then there are some imprudent people out there so who knows?
  3.  Anonymous contributions to charities are hardly a “loophole,” it is in fact a practice with a long and deeply ingrained history in philanthropy, praised in the Gospel of Matthew 6:1 – 6:4 and also by Seneca the Younger, among others. I’ve written an overview of anonymous charitable giving, published last year, if anyone is interested: http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/file_uploads/Protecting_Donor_Privacy.pdf<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philanthropyroundtable.org%2Ffile_uploads%2FProtecting_Donor_Privacy.pdf&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=MXjhoM%2BYVL5IYkkqNGLvop%2BrE7EsDV%2Fn7VrR2p10hSU%3D&reserved=0>

Best,
Sean Parnell
Vice President of Public Policy, The Philanthropy Roundtable
1120 20th Street NW, Suite 550 South
Washington, DC  20036
(202) 600-7883 (direct)
(571) 289-1374 (mobile)
sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org<mailto:sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org>

“An insidious foreign dark money threat: New reports about Russian money going to the NRA could prove watchdogs’ fears correct”<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D96992&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=hQFqRIgu49Qa0K%2FphgoV9XWv%2F3wtfS%2FWUsZLYPXAWNM%3D&reserved=0>
Posted on January 19, 2018 7:16 am<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D96992&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=hQFqRIgu49Qa0K%2FphgoV9XWv%2F3wtfS%2FWUsZLYPXAWNM%3D&reserved=0> by Rick Hasen<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fauthor%3D3&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=K9isstdElCba4jwIxtN%2BBCzohlVNQUtI%2F4WhuSzMnm4%3D&reserved=0>
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nydailynews.com%2Fopinion%2Finsidious-foreign-dark-money-threat-article-1.3765048&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=MkTTOodeNxftPZfAzK1VLA58uH0uqNLWbQ4z0GBm8YQ%3D&reserved=0> NYDN oped.
Posted in campaign finance <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.addtoany.com%2Fshare%23url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Felectionlawblog.org%252F%253Fp%253D96992%26title%3D%25E2%2580%259CAn%2520insidious%2520foreign%2520dark%2520money%2520threat%253A%2520New%2520reports%2520about%2520Russian%2520money%2520going%2520to%2520the%2520NRA%2520could%2520prove%2520watchdogs%25E2%2580%2599%2520fears%2520correct%25E2%2580%259D&data=02%7C01%7Cesegall%40gsu.edu%7Ccf3fc57b097a41223e1908d55f642627%7C515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7C0%7C0%7C636519806102165829&sdata=2pZ7JqnI8lyzCacy%2Bt%2By4qeIEkpM1yoHwz4igAlqIvI%3D&reserved=0>

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