In my last post, I left you with the expectation that I was looking into if the Federal Election Commission was doing anything regarding Attorney General Marshall’s formal request that Project Birmingham be investigated by the FEC.
Since no other news outlet is reporting on this at the moment, I thought my readers would at least like to know whether or not the FEC is in fact looking into this matter. I recently sent a request for information to the FEC and they replied quickly. FEC Deputy Press Officer, Christian Hilland, responded with the pasted text below.
A provision of federal campaign finance law requires that any Commission action on an enforcement matter be kept strictly confidential until the case is resolved. Therefore, to comply with this provision and to protect the interests of those involved in an enforcement case that is before the agency or on a matter that has the potential to come to the agency, we are unable to comment.
Potential violations of federal campaign finance law may be brought to the Commission’s attention through the complaint process. This process enables anyone to file a sworn complaint alleging violations and explaining the basis for the allegations. A description of the complaint process is available here. Each complaint is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and therefore, the length of every case will vary.
Note that a vote of at least four Commissioners is needed at every stage, including whether to (1) find reason to believe and initiate an investigation, (2) find probable cause that a violation has occurred or is about to occur, (3) settle a matter, or (4) authorize filing a lawsuit. If there are not four votes at any stage, the Commission will not proceed to the next step of the process.
Okay, I’m going to take that as a yes. The FEC is currently investigating Project Birmingham. I wonder if the media outlets, that reported to have documents from the September and December 2017 meetings, are cooperating?
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