Judge Puts Investigation of Alleged
2000 Campaign Abuses Fast Track

A coalition of public interest groups - the Campaign Legal Center, Public Citizen, Reform Institute and Public Campaign - called on U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft today to authorize the release of the FEC's investigatory files into long-standing allegations of serious campaign abuses during his losing 2000 campaign in Missouri for the U.S. Senate. Their letter is attached, and the text is below.

Last week, a federal judge refused to throw out a case in which Missouri voters are attempting to force the FEC to speed its investigation of the case, which has languished at the agency since March, 2001. The judge also ordered the FEC to respond to the plaintiffs' routine discovery requests in the case, despite the agency's vigorous resistance to turning over any information about the investigation.

Allegations of campaign law violations by Ashcroft's campaign committees were first reported by the Washington Post on February 1, 2001 - the day of his confirmation as Attorney General. The report included a charge that Spirit of America PAC, a political organization under Ashcroft's control, contributed a 100,000-name voter list to Ashcroft 2000, the then-senator's campaign committee. Under federal law, such a donation is an in-kind contribution subject to contribution limits. At a minimum estimated value of $100,000, such a contribution far exceeds the applicable $10,000 contribution limit. (Federal law allows $5,000 in contributions from a political action committee to a candidate committee during a primary, and another $5,000 in the general election.) Further, neither committee reported the transfer to the FEC, in violation of federal disclosure laws.

The FEC is required by law to keep the information it has gathered during its investigation into Ashcroft's campaign practices confidential. The agency may, however, release those files if the disclosure is authorized in writing by the person or entity being investigated. Attorney General Ashcroft is therefore in a position to authorize his campaign committees to allow the FEC to make the Ashcroft file public.

"The Attorney General's campaign officials stand accused of some major violations," said Mark Glaze, Associate Counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. "It would send a strong signal if the highest legal officer in the land will do the right thing and open his campaign practices up to public view. On the other hand, demanding that this whole matter be kept under a veil of secrecy sends exactly the wrong message about the accountability Americans can expect from their public officials."

To read the letter to Ashcroft go to http://www.nvri.org