After more than a year of inaction — 18 months, to be precise — the Federal Election Commission has finally ruled on Hillary Clinton’s $84 million money laundering scandal dating back to 2015 and 2016. And, well, she’ll get away with it.
More than 1,500 Democratic mega-donors moved $84 million on behalf of Clinton, in a brazen scheme to buy our democracy. They failed — spectacularly — and broke the law in the process. But, who cares, because the FEC isn’t doing a single thing about the largest campaign finance scandal in U.S. history.
Despite a strongly worded, highly detailed memorandum from their own Office of General Counsel — calling for a full investigation — the FEC officially deadlocked, punting on the opportunity to hold Clinton accountable and choosing instead to sit idly by as Democratic political elites continue to abuse our electoral system.
The Clinton scandal was first brought to light by the Committee to Defend the President — one of America’s leading pro-Trump super PACs — which filed a complaint with the FEC after spending months combing through 2016 campaign finance disclosures. Meticulously documenting the “unprecedented, massive, nationwide multi-million dollar conspiracy,” the committee’s 101-page complaint was built entirely on FEC reports filed by Democrats, memos authored by Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook, and public statements from former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile, among others.
To put it into perspective, Clinton’s $84 million money-laundering scheme is the single largest campaign finance scandal in U.S. history. Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was prosecuted, convicted and served eight months’ confinement and five years of probation for a similar type of campaign finance violation. Yet D’Souza’s violation amounted to $20,000 in straw man contributions.
Clinton’s comes out to $84 million — over 4,000 times more money!
Yet, faced with fact after cold, hard fact, the FEC decided to take no action. What message does that send to the American people? How can we trust our government to enforce the law when America’s most powerful politicians can get away with wantonly, routinely and dramatically breaking it?
In an age when skepticism of the Washington swamp is at an all-time high, the FEC had a unique opportunity to restore our confidence in the political system. The agency’s commissioners could have sent a message — to everyone, including the elites — that we all must play by the rules, or face the consequences.
But, in reality, we see clear-cut, highly detailed cases languish endlessly, with FEC commissioners talking a big game in public instead of acting efficiently and effectively. Now, we have to live with the consequences of government inaction (again), which will only embolden the Clintons of the world to continue playing by their own rules for personal gain.
Before it gets better, illegal electioneering will get much, much worse — at the expense of those of us playing by the actual rules. The FEC punting makes a mockery of our entire democratic system. The one silver lining in this debacle is the FEC also failing to approve defending its own inability to uphold the law in court. It seems that only the courts — and not the agency charged to do so — are available to hold the powerful accountable.
If that’s the case, why should anyone follow the rules now?
