The Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign have been fined by the Federal Election Commission for lying about the funding of the infamous, and discredited, Russian “dossier” used in a smear campaign against Donald Trump before he stunned the world with his 2016 presidential victory. According to the election agency, Clinton and the DNC broke strict laws when it came to disclosing expenditures channeled through their legal firm to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS.
The Washington Examiner reports, the DNC and Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie a total of $1,024,407.97 for Fusion GPS’s information. The party and campaign misrepresented the reason, stating it was for legal services, not opposition research. The DNC’s $849,407.97 and the Clinton campaign’s $175,000 went to Fusion GPS’s opposition research on the dossier, which served as the foundation for the “Russia hoax.”
The Clinton campaign and DNC contend that they were justified in portraying their payment as “legal advice and services” because Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS. Neither the DNC nor the Clinton campaign has admitted to lying about funding the dossier but the FEC explained, “Solely for the purpose of settling this matter expeditiously and to avoid further legal costs, respondent[s] does not concede, but will not further contest the commission’s finding of probable cause to proceed.” The FEC penalized Clinton’s treasurer $8,000 and the DNC’s treasurer $105,000.
Clinton has denied any wrongdoing with her campaign’s spending on the dossier and the work of her campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, with Fusion GPS, the firm that assembled the dossier and recruited former British spy Christopher Steele to investigate Trump. However, Trump has attacked the dossier as full of falsehoods, and the FBI has labeled it a hoax, but only after Trump’s reputation was tarnished.
