Laundry day. The RNC—which has been putting pressure on Haley to drop out, citing fundraising concerns—has started revving up its national fundraising “washing machine,” with or without Trump as the nominee.
Last week, the RNC created a generic presidential fundraising vehicle called “The Presidential Republican Nominee Fund 2024,” which this week joined the “2024 RNC Joint Victory” flotilla of dozens of state party committees.
That machine could go a good way towards bailing out a cash-strapped GOP, at least temporarily, though the party would clearly prefer to slap Trump’s name and image on its fundraising solicitations. Until he wins outright or Haley drops, however, that option is legally off the table.
However, that machine is also starting to look a little worse for the wear.
This national joint fundraising setup is critical because it exploits a 2014 fundraising loophole that legal experts have likened to little more than legalized money laundering—opening a channel for massive amounts of megadonor cash to wash through national parties, campaigns, and state-level committees, evading individual donation limits.
But the last time the RNC teamed up with the Trump campaign on this project—“Trump Victory” in 2020—a number of state Republican committees appeared to have no idea that massive amounts of money had passed through their accounts on its way back to the RNC. Those state parties failed to disclose major transfers—sometimes millions of dollars—in violation of reporting requirements, and could not explain the discrepancies. At the time, I reported that a small Beltway bank popular with GOP committees was in the crosshairs, but it’s unknown whether or how the GOP ever resolved the issue internally.
Today, a number of the state parties left in the dark in 2020 are now missing from the RNC’s new 2024 “Joint Victory” committee. That list includes the currently divided Michigan GOP, as well as parties in Colorado, Hawaii, Arkansas, and Wyoming—which was fined $52,000 for bunging up the washing machine during Trump’s first campaign. (WyoFile reported in 2021 that the party’s treasurer accused the state chair and the RNC of going behind his back in an “obvious ‘end run’ to by-pass individual state laws.”)
ChatGOP. The investigation into deepfaked AI robocalls purporting to come from Joe Biden is on, with the first focus on a Texas company.
It’s the first of what will likely be many similar enforcement efforts to come, as bad actors seek to manipulate the 2024 elections with artificial intelligence—a battle between regulators and operatives that’s shaping up into an “arms race forever,” Politico reported on Wednesday.
The robocalls, mimicking Biden’s voice, instructed New Hampshire voters, falsely, to not show up to vote in the primary last month. In response, the Federal Communications Commission sent a cease-and-desist this week to Texas firm Lingo Telecom, which carried the robocalls. In a separate cease-and-desist, the FCC and the New Hampshire Attorney General targeted a second Texas company allegedly involved with the calls—called Life Corporation—accusing the entity of breaking state voter suppression laws. (Lingo suspended its service to Life after learning of the probe, Politico reported, and has pledged to cooperate with law enforcement.)
While a handful of states have enacted laws regulating AI in elections, nothing has happened at the federal level, even as the calendar has flipped over into 2024. Last month, FEC Chair Sean Cooksey said that his agency will take up rulemaking by the early summer, but it’s unclear whether the FEC—which regulates political fundraising and spending—can even exercise jurisdiction over AI.
Congress has also not acted, and no robust, practical measures have been proposed to regulate the application of the technology while simultaneously protecting political speech under the Constitution.
Speaking of nightmares… Friend of the Dirt Tom Moore—former legal counsel to FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub, now senior fellow with the Center for American Progress—seized the DeSantis flameout to float a nightmare scenario he’d first brought to my attention about a year ago. (Nightmare, of course, being relative—a campaign finance nightmare.)
Moore presented the scenario in a Talking Points Memo op-ed late last month. The gist of it is that while DeSantis’ shady relationship with his aligned super PAC drew ample criticism, the real concern is the possibilities that this new relationship raised in the future, if taken to an extreme. That could theoretically include an unregistered candidate backed by an entirely anonymous outside spending group, with essentially no limits on its fundraising.
First step is a candidate who doesn’t have to register—which is actually fairly straightforward.
“And as long as the person running for office doesn’t lift a finger in the fundraising department—and spends less than $5,000 in gas money—they’re not a candidate under federal law and they don’t have to register with the Federal Election Commission,” Moore pointed out. “Instead, the independent group can raise and spend unlimited amounts to get that person elected.”
The true nightmare kicks in, Moore wrote, when this hypothetical group doesn’t meet the statutory definition of a super PAC.
“To the FEC, ‘super PAC’ is slang for an independent expenditure-only political committee,” Moore wrote, noting that an “independent expenditure” is defined as advocating for the election or defeat of a “clearly identified candidate.”
But if the office-seeker is not technically a candidate, then none of the money this hypothetical group spends on their behalf qualifies as an expenditure—meaning they wouldn’t have to report any of it.
“That’s terrifying,” Moore pointed out.
You’re a real sicko, Tom. Thanks for putting this idea in someone’s head.
Roe v. Everybody. In the aftermath of the DeSantis collapse, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s political team fired its top fundraising vendor, a company owned by DeSantis super PAC strategist and GOP consultant extraordinaire Jeff Roe, Politico’s Dan Lippman reported on Wednesday.
The firm—Fundraising Inc.; one of the biggest donor consultancies—wasn’t given a reason for the shakeup, which came “a few weeks after Johnson became speaker,” Politico reported. Last month, Lippman reported that Trump had told Republicans to cut their ties with Roe, in “an act of political retribution” for his work with DeSantis.
Johnson’s team told Politico that they’re still retaining another Axiom consultant, Jason Hebert, but the report noted that the Washington Post had reported that Hebert is expected to begin billing that work through a separate, unaffiliated company.
Do the right thing. Madison Square Garden has launched a new federal corporate PAC, according to an FEC filing on Wednesday. The fabled Manhattan arena has engaged in relatively small-dollar federal lobbying over the years, but it hasn’t had a PAC until now.
The reasons aren’t immediately clear, but MSG is seen as the biggest obstacle to long-overdue renovations to New York’s Penn Station, which the 20,000-seat venue sits directly on top of—and into which are thrust its massive support columns. In September, the city granted MSG a five-year operating permit—its initial permit was for 50 years—in an effort to force the arena to the negotiating table about a potential relocation elsewhere in Manhattan.
MSG, which as of August had spent half a million dollars lobbying for a longer permit, blasted the decision as “a grave disservice to New Yorkers” and a “shortsighted move that will further contribute to the erosion of the City.”
The Garden, however, is up against some powerful opposition. The Penn Station renovation project has been a top priority for many New York officials, including Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Most of the reporting on the negotiations has hinged on local and state officials, and now MSG might be trying to go over their heads.
