Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Home Front: Politix

America First Legal sues FEC to force action on Hunter Biden laptop deniers during 2020 campaign

2024-03-03

*Snicker* Alinsky ‘em good, guys.

[FoxNews] AFL Legal claims the 51 former intelligence officials gave Biden an in-kind campaign contribution by calling the Hunter Biden laptop 'disinformation'.

After the Federal Election Commission declined to act against Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for the laptop-denying statement by 51 former intelligence officials, a conservative watchdog group is trying to force action.

America First Legal sued the FEC in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the agency that polices campaign donations and spending to act.

"The FEC decided we’re not going to act on this. So, what the district court will do, our hope, is that it will order the FEC to investigate and take this seriously," Daniel Epstein, vice president of America First Legal, told Fox News Digital.

In October, the group filed an FEC complaint against the Biden for President campaign from 2020, the Biden Victory Fund, the Biden Action Fund and the Democratic National Committee for failing to report indirect contributions from the later-debunked statement by the 51 officials released on October 19, 2020, just weeks before the November 8 election, and just days before a presidential debate.

The statement claimed without evidence that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely part of a "Russian disinformation" campaign.

If the FEC doesn’t act, it is "effectively encouraging disinformation to the public that may influence the election," Epstein continued.

An FEC spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the agency doesn’t comment on litigation. Neither the 2024 Biden presidential campaign nor the DNC responded to inquiries for this story.

The FEC has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit. Epstein anticipates the agency will file a motion to remand the matter back to the FEC for investigation.

In March 2023, former Obama administration CIA Deputy and Acting Director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary and House Intelligence Committees that on October 17, 2020, then-Biden campaign staffer Antony Blinken, now the secretary of state, contacted him to discuss drafting a statement to attack the Hunter Biden laptop story first reported by the New York Post.  Morrell circulated the statement among other anti-Trump former intelligence officials. The 51 former officials who signed on included Leon Panetta, John Brennan and James Clapper from the Barack Obama administration, as well as Michael Hayden from the George W. Bush administration — all vocal critics of Trump.

Eventually, both the New York Times and Washington Post verified the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop.

"Because Morrell, Brennan, Clapper, and the other signatories were supposedly ‘nonpartisan’ national security and intelligence experts, their public statement was a campaign contribution of substantial value to the respondents, who solicited the ‘Letter of 51’ from them for the express purpose of influencing the 2020 presidential election," the AFL lawsuit says. "Yet, the respondents failed to report the contribution and to identify the individuals who made it."

Posted by:Skidmark

#1 The 51 clowns will need to be dealt with in February or so. There will be a tendency to forget them. Let’s not. Let’s put them on our Santa Claus list as naughty.

Posted by: Super Hose 2024-03-03 11:08

00:00