The Federal Election Commission fined Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign campaign $8,000 and the Democratic National Committee $105,000 for concealing their funding of the “Steele Dossier,” a 2016 opposition research report , who tried to highlight alleged ties between Donald Trump and Russia.
The bipartisan Electoral Commission also dismissed a complaint against Christopher Steele, author of the dossier that sparked a firestorm of allegations and investigations that rocked the first few months of Trump’s presidency.
The campaign incorrectly labeled Steele’s work as “legal services” and “legal and compliance advice” in campaign documents, the FEC concluded.
Steele and the campaign were informed of the FEC’s decision on Tuesday. A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee acknowledged that it agreed to pay the FEC’s fine, but said it did “Resolved aging and stupid 2016 election complaints about ‘purpose descriptions’ in our FEC report.”
The FEC’s ruling was in response to a complaint filed in 2018 by the conservative advocacy group Coolidge Reagan Foundation. Coolidge Reagan Foundation advisory board member Paul Kamenar called the DNC spokesman’s description “appalling” in a call to CBS News.
“It is outrageous that the DNC would downplay the serious violation that has taken place by labeling campaign disclosure laws as ‘stupid’ violations,” said Kamenar, adding that he believed the FEC should have sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice.
Lawyers working for Democrats in 2016 hired research firm Fusion GPS to investigate Trump, and the firm then paid Steele, a former British intelligence officer, and his company Orbis.
Steele’s report, based on anonymous sources, concluded that Russia had gathered information that could compromise Trump. The dossier has been a source of controversy for years, and Trump has often claimed it spurred the special counsel’s investigation into contacts between his campaign and Russian officials.
Steele’s attorneys praised the verdict in a statement to CBS News.
“This decision by the FEC underscores once again that Mr. Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence acted with complete integrity and professionalism in their work during the 2016 presidential election,” wrote Steele’s attorneys, Robert Weinberg and Joshua Shiffrin.
In 2018, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee concluded that the Russia probe was fueled by information the FBI obtained through Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos — not the Steele dossier . However, the FBI relied in part on information from the dossier to obtain surveillance warrants for Trump’s campaign aide Carter Page in 2016.
Trending News
Graham Kates