All the President’s Scammers
Being a MAGA supporter can feel demoralizing. They are bullied on campus, accused of fake hate crimes, and casually labeled bigots, even when doing nothing but awaiting a bus. In Washington bureaucrats proudly pronounce ‘Resistance’ fealty and meritless investigations last years.
So when phone calls or glossy mailers arrive adorned with the president’s image asking for a small donation to help fight back, many don’t hesitate.
But unless they ask the caller or read the fine print these donors won’t know the fundraisers are likely untethered to Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign. Still fewer realize their money is probably destined for a vendor’s pocket rather than political activity.
In the three years since I wrote the viral articles “How we Killed the Tea Party” and “Scamming the Pro-Life Movement” thwarting these schemes has progressed but avaricious hands of coastal operatives still slither into trusting Southern and Midwestern checkbooks.
A recent report by Campaign Legal Center (CLC) detailed one such operation by David Bossie, former Trump deputy campaign manager, and head of Supreme-Court famous Citizens United, and lesser known The Presidential Coalition (Coalition). Its findings are depressing if familiar.
In two years, Bossie’s group snatched $15.4 million mostly small-donor dollars, spending only three percent on political activity via candidate contributions or direct adverts. The rest went to affiliates, book purchases, salaries, pensions, and oh so many telemarketing and direct-mail vendors.
The Coalition’s techniques resemble another sleaze operation that recently sent one person to prison. Through high-pressure phone calls and mailings National Campaign PAC d/b/a “The Pro-Life Committee” raised over $7 million in the 2016 cycle and funneled nearly all of it through two vendors that exclusively serviced it and another group. In all the scammer raised around $23 million.
Like National Campaign, the Coalition appears to have counted its fundraising costs as political activity on government forms. Like National Campaign, the Coalition boasted of supporting numerous candidates without the context of percent outlays that support encompassed. National Campaign’s activities were extreme. Whether Mr. Bossie’s group crossed the line from misleading pitches to something more would be up to authorities.
Responding to the report the Coalition sent a three-page missive attacking CLC as biased, claiming its fierce opposition to Citizens United v. FEC nullifies their findings. There is some merit here. CLC leads a cabal of left-wing “reform” groups whose missions include curtailing Americans’ First amendment rights. But its Coalition report shed light on a menace conservative media usually ignore.
Mr. Bossie has joined a long list of hucksters like Alex Jones and Birchers before him who prey on conservative’s correct assertion that America’s cultural forces are aligned against them. It’s not just the oddballs, earlier this century former George H. W. Bush’s Labor secretary nominee Linda Chavez and her relatives ran several groups each with a different exploitive issue. An analysis found they collectively spent 1.6% of $24.5 million raised on political activity. At the time she called it “the family business.”
The plague has now reached the left. One new Democrat vendor collected $35 million for midterm work with email solicitations like “Trump is INCHES away from firing Robert Mueller . . . Mueller is helpless. If you’re a good person, you have to sign RIGHT NOW.” Media has also tagged Scott Dworkin of Democratic Coalition for funneling donations into his own salary and consulting company.
But these are raindrops compared to the greenback ocean conservative hucksters collect each year with breathless appeals for small dollars. When confronted they usually claim left-wing bullying or a misreading of campaign reports.
That may be changing. Last year, InfoCision, an infamous Ohio-based telemarketing company these groups often use paid a $250k civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission claims it mislead prospects. The Coalition paid InfoCision over $1 million in the past two years. Following the CLC report, the Trump campaign encouraged investigation of “all alleged scam groups.”
Monetary support is a quintessentially American tradition. We tip waiters, crowdfund legal fees and medical bills, buy raffle tickets, and invest in companies. But we trust the money goes where promised. First Amendment and free-market advocates like myself are weary of government intervention. In fact, I was subject to a three-year meritless investigation following my Tea Party article (all charges were eventually dropped).
But the people who engage in these activities should at least be shamed and drummed out of the movement no matter what their connections or previous good work.
Paul H. Jossey is a lawyer in Alexandria, Virginia and principal at Jossey PLLC.Please follow him @paulhjossey
