The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center told the Washington Examiner it believes the 2016 Committee, a super PAC supporting GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson, may have committed a violation involving a decision to distribute a fundraising solicitation from Carson’s presidential campaign.
But the 2016 Committee claims it has complied fully with federal law, and the Federal Election Commission has not rendered any judgment so far.
The fundraising request was contained in an email sent from John Philip Sousa IV, chairman of the 2016 Committee. It begins, “I’m forwarding you an urgent message from Ben Carson that I thought would be of interest to you.”
It also includes the message, “Across this nation people will look at how much we raise this quarter to see if we’re serious. We are very serious and I need you to stand with me now by making a donation.”
The super PAC has previously distributed similar emails that include Carson’s campaign fundraising pitches.
“That to me looks like republication of campaign material. That looked like a solicitation from the campaign that they just forwarded,” said Lawrence Noble, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “Under the federal election campaign act, republishing campaign material is considered a contribution to the campaign. And so whatever it costs the super PAC to do that, to send that out, would be considered a contribution to the campaign and again since the super PAC has presumably corporate money in it, money raised outside the contribution limits, that would be an illegal contribution to the campaign.”
Super PACs are independent organizations that can raise virtually unlimited amounts of money and spend it in support of a candidate, but they cannot pay direct campaign expenses or coordinate with the candidate.
Noble said he has not yet seen any other super PACs distribute campaign fundraising pitches in this way, but compared it to super PACs’ past usage of candidates’ “B-roll” video footage that the Campaign Legal Center has argued violated federal rules and regulations.
Sousa told the Examiner that the 2016 Committee’s attorneys have assured him that, “there’s absolutely no violation at all.”
“What they do is they rent our list and that’s who it goes to, which is perfectly legal because we rent that list to other organizations all the time,” Sousa said. “We do the intro, “think this might be something that [you’d] be interested in seeing” and it goes out.”
Sousa did not say what price the campaign pays to rent the list, but insisted that the 2016 Committee charged the campaign the same amount as it did to other groups. Doug Watts, Carson campaign communications director, also did not share the amount paid to rent the list and said the super PAC would need to release the price.
“That was a solicitation sent by Carson America [the campaign], paid for by Carson America, renting the list (at fair market value) from the 2016 Committee,” Watts said in an email. “The terms of usage of their list rental requires their information at the top.”
But the sender’s address belongs to Sousa: “[email protected],” and not the campaign. The email does include the message, “Paid for by Carson America, Inc.” Asked about the discrepancy, Watts responded that he didn’t have the email in front of him.
“[G]enerally, one can rent a list and the renter provides the name file and you send it on your own. Occasionally, they require that they control the sending,” Watts said. “Think that is what happened here.”
Asked about the super PAC’s decision to send out the communication rather than the campaign sending it out independently to the same list, Sousa said he did not think it made any difference and added, “We think it’s one and the same.”
Julia Queen, an FEC spokesperson, declined to make any judgment about the legality of the communication, and directed the Examiner to “what little bit of regulation we have” on super PACs and campaigns.
Noble noted that if the FEC determines wrongdoing has taken place, the punishment could vary.
“We’re dealing here with the Federal Election Commission so it’s not the most functional agency, which is putting it mildly,” Noble said. “It could be handled as a civil action by the Federal Election Commission. So it could be a financial penalty. It could be, require them to sign a conciliation agreement saying that this was illegal.”
Aside from whether such action was improper, the Carson campaign has successfully amassed $31 million since announcing his presidential campaign on May 4, and $20 million during the last three months. Carson, who ranks third in the Washington Examiner‘s most recent GOP presidential power rankings, has frequently finished second among the candidates in national polls conducted since the second Republican debate in September.
