Sept.1
Political News, Now.
James O’Keefe, a Political Sleuth, to Stalk Campaigns for Wrongdoing
Campaign rallies are crawling with hidden cameras these days as opposition researchers from rivals, activist groups or political action committees spare no expense in hopes of finding a gaffe or, ideally, signs of unlawfulness.
Presidential campaigns were put on notice on Tuesday that the stakes will be higher in this election cycle as Project Veritas Action, a research team that uses undercover investigators, warned that it was stepping up its stalking.
The group, which considers itself a journalism organization, is led by James O’Keefe, who has experienced his own legal problems over the years for lying to gain access to information. In 2010, Mr. O’Keefe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and was fined for posing as a repairman to gain access to the office of former Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Two years ago, Mr. O’Keefe paid $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a former Acorn member after he posed as a pimp during an investigation of the activist group.
Mr. O’Keefe’s team — which he billed as an investigative SEAL Team Six — fired an opening salvo on Tuesday by calling a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington to reveal a purported violation of campaign finance laws by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s staff members.
In a five-minute video compilation, Veritas showed senior members of Mrs. Clinton’s team appearing to accept a donation from a Canadian women at Mrs. Clinton’s campaign announcement rally in exchange for hats and pins bearing the candidate’s name. The staff members — Molly Barker and Erin Tibe — express awareness that they cannot accept a donation from a foreigner but agree to allow the Canadian woman to give the money to an American citizen standing next to her who made the transaction on her behalf.
Although the American happened to be one of Project Veritas’s staff members who used a fake name, Mr. O’Keefe made the case that the video showed a willingness by the campaign to skirt laws that forbid taking donations from foreigners by using a conduit. The transaction amounted to $75, and Project Veritas has asked Mrs. Clinton’s campaign to refund the money.
“They have demonstrated a willingness to contravene the law,” Mr. O’Keefe said.
Foreign donations are a sensitive subject for the Clintons, as their family foundation has been under scrutiny for accepting money from overseas while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, and recent State Department emails showed that former President Bill Clinton tried to get permission to give paid speeches in North Korea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign denied any wrongdoing and accused Project Veritas of attempted entrapment.
“Our staffers understand and follow the law, as demonstrated even in their selectively edited video,” said Jesse Ferguson, a campaign spokesman. “Project Veritas, on the other hand, has been caught trying to commit fraud, falsify identities and break campaign finance law — not surprising, given that their founder has already been convicted for efforts like this.”
The Federal Election Commission would not comment specifically on the case but noted that at least four commissioners would have to agree that there was a violation before any penalties could be imposed.
Christian Hilland, an F.E.C. spokesman, did point to the agency’s rules against accepting foreign money that specifies: “Federal law prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures and disbursements solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any election.”
While Mrs. Clinton’s campaign denied breaking any laws, Mr. O’Keefe and his lawyer, Benjamin Barr, acknowledged that Project Veritas did act illegally by facilitating such a donation but that the infraction on their part was so minor that it was akin to jaywalking.
Although campaign finance violations are a serious issue, Mr. O’Keefe’s presentation drew some snickers from the reporters that Project Veritas had convened for the event. He struggled to justify breaking laws and using fake names to find wrongdoing, and at one point Mr. O’Keefe was asked pointedly, “Is this a joke?”
Brushing the question off as ridicule, Mr. O’Keefe maintained that the organization was acting for the greater good to shine a light on corruption in politics and that more videos would be trickling out from its team of investigators who are spread across the country and infiltrating campaigns. Claiming not to be partisan, he said that Republican candidates should be ready, too.
“We are going to create an army of exposers,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “We’ve got more.”
More Posts
Donald Trump Meets With Javier Palomarez, Head of U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Donald J. Trump has been ruffling feathers with Hispanics with his tough talk on immigration, but on Tuesday the Republican presidential candidate took a step to try to smooth things over.
Mr. Trump invited Javier Palomarez, president of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, to his Manhattan office for a meeting to clear the air. Each were joined by two staff members for a 90-minute meeting that Mr. Palomarez described as surprisingly cordial and productive.
“He was very mannerly, very hospitable and never once did he interrupt me,” Mr. Palomarez said, noting that Mr. Trump listened more than he talked during the meeting.
Mr. Trump declined to comment, but his spokeswoman acknowledged that the meeting took place.
Mr. Palomarez said that he had expressed his disapproval with Mr. Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico and to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally. He also explained to Mr. Trump that such moves would severely cost the construction and hospitality industries, which rely on the labor of immigrants.
Mr. Trump politely disagreed, Mr. Palomarez said, and made the case that undocumented workers were imposing significant costs on the United States economy.
While Mr. Palomarez said he was not endorsing Mr. Trump, he did express “shock” at how friendly the conversation was and and said he was impressed with the candidate.
“He was not combative, he was not rude,” Mr. Palomarez said. “He was a complete gentleman.”
Despite the warmer feelings, differences remain.
Mr. Palomarez said that when he and Mr. Trump discussed the idea of the chamber holding its convention in Miami next year, Mr. Trump suggested that it be held at the Trump National Doral Resort there. Given Mr. Trump’s recent tone toward Hispanics, Mr. Palomarez said, such a choice was unlikely.
Marco Rubio Faults Donald Trump on ‘Make America Great Again’ Slogan
CARSON CITY, Nev. — The slogan is now synonymous with Donald J. Trump’s campaign: “Make America Great Again.” It is embroidered on the hats he sells for $25 and often seen printed on homemade T-shirts and signs at his rallies across the country.
But Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the many Republicans challenging Mr. Trump for the party’s presidential nomination, says Mr. Trump misses the point. And lately, Mr. Rubio has taken to criticizing the billionaire developer for giving America short shrift.
In a campaign stop here in Northern Nevada on Tuesday, Mr. Rubio insisted that Mr. Trump’s claim implied that America wasn’t great, when he said nothing could be further from the truth.
“There’s one other candidate running, he says he’s going to make America great again,” Mr. Rubio told a crowd of about 200 people at a community center here. “I understand what he means by that. I don’t mean that as a slight.”
“I would remind everyone America is great,” Mr. Rubio continued. “There’s no nation on earth I would trade places with. There’s no other country I would rather be. The issue is not that we’re not great. The issue is whether we will remain great. The issue is, we can be even greater than we are now. We can be even more prosperous, more powerful.”
Notably, Mr. Rubio refrained from mentioning Mr. Trump by name, no doubt aware of his opponent’s propensity for taking delight in filleting people who criticize him too harshly.
At Wharton, Donald Trump’s Marketing Skills Make the Grade
Donald J. Trump has made a few things clear to voters as he has barnstormed the country making his case for the presidency. He will build a wall; he is very rich; and he went to Wharton – the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious business school.
Professors on campus are staying mostly mum about Mr. Trump’s presidential prospects, but when it comes to his political marketing skills some of them cannot help but appreciate his results.
“Short, clear statements are easy to process,” said Michael Platt, a professor of marketing and neuroscience at Wharton. “They do not rely on nuance or subtlety. That seems to resonate with people and possibly reinforces what I think are nonverbal signals Trump transmits, unknowingly, to the public.”
Professor Platt suggested that Mr. Trump’s celebrity and physical features – his height and his confident scowl – are exploiting ancestral mechanisms that are appealing to the general public. Studies show that when people look at a face more often, they tend to prefer it, so the attention showered upon Mr. Trump may be reinforcing his favorability.
Jonah Berger, who also teaches marketing at Wharton, said that Mr. Trump might be gaining attention by shooting from the hip.
“Controversy drives conversation,” Professor Berger said. “I think whether on purpose or by accident, he’s done a masterful job of using controversy to keep his name in the news. “
Professor Berger argues that not all publicity is good publicity, but that Mr. Trump has done a good job of walking the fine line of being offensive enough to get attention without drawing universal condemnation. The approach tends to work for generating celebrity buzz, he said, but it could prove tenuous in the long term.
As for Wharton, it has been handling its own bout of Trump publicity with care. The school has asked its faculty members to avoid discussing Mr. Trump’s politics publicly. And his incorrect use of its name — he calls it “The Wharton School of Finance” — has not gone unnoticed.
“He’s not treated in the most reverent tone here,” Professor Berger said. “But we wish all of our students well.”
Scott Walker Shows His ‘Aggressive’ Side
The ‘Aggressively Normal’ Scott Walker
Gov. Scott Walker discusses his Reagan-inspired policies and what sets him apart from the other Republican presidential candidates with CNBC’s John Harwood.
By CNBC on September 1, 2015. Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin called himself “aggressively normal” in the first Republican presidential debate — and saw his poll numbers go backward.
Now he’s highlighting the “aggressive” part.
In an interview with John Harwood in Manchester, N.H., he hit his Republican rival John Kasich, assailing his expansion of Medicaid as governor of Ohio, calling it “precisely what’s wrong” with government. He accused Republican senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida, of “procedural talk” in saying they can’t repeal the Affordable Care Act during President Obama’s tenure, and said Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of her email as secretary of state disqualifies her from the White House race.
As for the mood of American voters, the scrappy Mr. Walker declared, “Right now people do want a fight.”
Jeb Bush Video Takes Aim at Donald Trump’s ‘Manhattan’ Mind-Set
Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is pulling no punches with Donald J. Trump, assailing him in a new online advertisement as a fake conservative.
Titled “The Real Donald Trump,” the ad uses Mr. Trump’s words against him, pulling footage of the billionaire developer saying he identifies as a Democrat, defending partial-birth abortion and singing the praises of a single-payer health care system. Mr. Trump is also caught calling for higher taxes and saying nice things about Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, O.K., so my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa,” Mr. Trump said in an interview, explaining why his views were different than those of many Republicans.
The video is Mr. Bush’s opening video salvo against Mr. Trump, who has seared the former Florida governor with a repeated attack of being “low-energy.” Mr. Bush has tried to point to Mr. Trump’s résumé as being less than conservative, but his comments have been dwarfed by the developer’s bombastic attacks.
Yet this is a video that isn’t going on television, at least not yet. And while the Bush campaign is going frontally at Mr. Trump, the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush, Right to Rise USA, has made clear it does not plan to focus its initial forays on the air on Mr. Trump.
The video’s aggressive approach follows a similar effort by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has argued that Mr. Trump is saying whatever it takes to get elected.
Mr. Trump has made the former Florida governor his favorite target, not only with the his “lack of energy” attack, but also by trolling him on Twitter for any campaign gaffes and distributing Instagram videos that include his mother, Barbara Bush, saying there have been enough Bushes in the White House.
While Republicans spent the early part of the summer unsure of how to respond to Mr. Trump’s rise, Mr. Bush’s ad makes clear that hitting back hard and painting him as a huckster is the latest strategy.
For Bernie Sanders, Brooklyn Roots Pose a Test, History Shows
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont may be making inroads against Hillary Rodham Clinton when it comes to recent polling, injecting his Brooklyn accent into the presidential campaign discourse. While voters seem to be increasingly gravitating to his message, his candidacy raises another question: Is the nation finally ready to embrace a politician from New York City’s most populous borough?
Mr. Sanders, who hails from East Flatbush, is at least the fourth Brooklyn native to formally seek the nation’s highest office. But the historical track record of Brooklynites seeking the White House is poor, marked by campaign stumbles, quixotic candidacies and limited voter appeal.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the two-term mayor who made his stewardship of the city after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks the central theme of his 2008 presidential campaign, showed the danger of peaking early and ignoring his party’s base (something it would be hard to accuse Mr. Sanders of doing).
In March 2007, Mr. Giuliani was leading in most national polls. But with his past support for abortion rights and immigration making him a target of the right, Mr. Giuliani decided to ignore the more conservative voters in Iowa and South Carolina, and focus his money and campaigning on politically moderate Florida.
This strategy backfired as he performed badly in the first round of contests, and he went from “national front-runner’” to “fourth-place finisher” in New Hampshire. Lacking the momentum of early victories, he placed third in Florida and ended his campaign with zero delegates, 11 fewer than Fred Thompson, the former “Law & Order” star who dropped out of the race eight days before Mr. Giuliani.
One Brooklynite who did get a fair number of delegates was Shirley Chisholm. In 1968 Mrs. Chisholm, who was from Bedford-Stuyvesant, made history as the first black woman elected to Congress. In 1972 she took it a step further and ran for president, becoming the first woman to run as a Democrat and the first black candidate for a major party’s presidential nomination.
Though she admitted that her candidacy was a largely symbolic act, she secured 152 delegates at the 1972 Democratic convention. But 124 of those delegates were themselves symbolic, bequeathed to her by Hubert H. Humphrey as a final petulant act against George McGovern, the eventual nominee.
Mrs. Chisholm was somewhat ahead of her time, running when it was a political liability to be black, female and a relative political novice, none of which describe Mr. Sanders, but all of which have become less of a hurdle in recent decades.
Which brings us to one Brooklyn-born politician who actually ran in the general election for president: Barry Commoner, who came from East New York. Unlike Mrs. Chisholm and Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Commoner secured his party’s nomination for president.
Unfortunately, the Citizens Party was largely the creation of Mr. Commoner himself and never gained enough traction to seriously threaten the dominance of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Mr. Commoner’s political platform drew primarily from his environmental activism and the socialist-style programs he felt were necessary to correct the damage being done to the planet. His message resonated with just 0.27 percent of the voters nationally in 1980, when Ronald Reagan captured the presidency.
Mr. Sanders actually shares some of the ideological leanings of Mr. Commoner, but in aligning himself with the Democratic Party, the senator has taken a much different approach to his career – and one that seems to be paying off, with thousands regularly attending his recent rallies.
Baiting a Hook in Minneapolis, Bernie Sanders Was Torn Between Herring and Bagels
In Tuesday’s paper, we look at how the crowds Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing around the country help him in Iowa.
Like Mr. Sanders’s campaign itself, those crowds have bloomed over the summer. But even at the beginning, Mr. Sanders sensed something big was coming.
In Minneapolis, for a campaign event at the end of May, the candidate reported the positive response back to his good friend Richard Sugarman in Burlington, Vt.
“‘We sent out I-don’t-know-how-many invitations for breakfast, a thousand or something, and we got 2,500 responses,’” Mr. Sanders said, according to Mr. Sugarman.
“What are you serving for breakfast?” Mr. Sugarman asked.
“Phil!” Mr. Sanders called over to his longtime field director, Phil Fiermonte, “What are we serving for breakfast?”
“‘Bernard, why don’t you try herring,” Mr. Sugarman suggested. “A lot of these people are Scandinavian.”
Mr. Sanders, apparently confident they weren’t there for the spread, responded, “Maybe bagels.”
Chris Christie Takes Some Ribbing From Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon was shocked to hear that he wasn’t the first “Jimmy” to come to Gov. Chris Christie’s mind.
“I’m from New Jersey, do you know how many Jimmies I know?” Mr. Christie said, before they broke into a laugh.
Mr. Christie’s appearance on “The Tonight Show” on Monday seemed less an interview and more a casual-yet-caffeinated banter between on-screen friends.
Mr. Fallon previewed the interview in his monologue, saying that Governor Christie “showed up in one of Miley Cyrus’s outfits from the V.M.A.s last night.”
And as Mr. Christie told a story about getting ice cream with Mitt Romney and Senator Marco Rubio’s families in New Hampshire over the Fourth of July, Mr. Fallon cut him off.
“First of all, you weren’t like ‘all right,’” Mr. Fallon said with a sheepish inflection, imitating how Mr. Christie told the story.
Mr. Fallon then pumped his fists like a child excited about his Rocky Road. “You were like, ‘Yahoo!’”
Mr. Christie momentarily acted offended and wandered offstage, before returning to finish the story, explaining that the three Republican leaders floundered for cash to treat their children to ice cream before being saved by Ann Romney.
“Don’t worry, would-be presidents, I have it handled,” she chided the men, according to Mr. Christie.
But amid the joking and jockeying, Mr. Fallon hit on a point plaguing the Christie campaign as it struggles to gain traction in the crowded field.
“And now Trump is running, and boy, is he just going out and yelling and saying stuff,” Mr. Fallon said. “I thought that was going to be your thing.”
The smile Mr. Christie had been wearing for the entire interview twitched a little, before he responded. “Life is a strange, strange ride Jimmy,” he said, “and we’ll just keep riding it.”
Today in Politics: Jeb Bush Is Still Waiting for Polling to Catch Up With Fund-Raising
Good Tuesday morning. Though the political world will be poring over the latest batch of emails from Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s time as secretary of state, Jeb Bush‘s campaign is hoping a new month will help bridge the sustained gap between his success in fund-raising and his lagging poll numbers.
September has finally arrived, and for Mr. Bush, it isn’t a moment too soon.
Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, has not had a seasonal respite from his breakneck fund-raising of earlier this year. Nor has he had a stretch of good headlines. Instead, he’s had Donald J. Trump, a middling outing in the first Republican debate, and a string of supporters wringing their hands about when things will improve.
The “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush is set to go on air with television ads this month in the hopes of turning around his numbers. Mike Murphy, his longtime adviser who leads the group, has publicly sounded unconcerned about Mr. Trump’s ascension and insists there is no need to act any sooner.
At the same time, the campaign has had to trim its sails in terms of spending, budget cuts that aides described as prudent rather than desperate. Three junior fund-raising consultants parted ways with Team Bush in recent days; while they were described in some reports as “key,” their roles with the super PAC have ended as well. In many respects, this is the product of Mr. Bush running his pre-campaign and his super PAC in tandem for six months. When the two were disentangled, the campaign was flying without a net, and officials there took some time to adjust.
His fund-raising team, by all accounts, has been among the more tumultuous campaign divisions, in part because of scheduling issues and in part because of personality clashes.
They are still adjusting, it seems, since budget concerns were the main reason Mr. Bush shook up his campaign before it started. Mr. Bush’s aides believe he is held to a different standard from other candidates, much like Mrs. Clinton, and they point to a cash advantage that is still likely to dwarf that of his closest competitors. But Mr. Bush will need to start putting some points on the board, and soon, to shake off a rough beginning.
— Maggie Haberman
Stay tuned throughout the day: Follow us on Twitter @NYTpolitics and on Facebook for First Draft updates.
What We’re Watching Today
President Obama arrived in Alaska on Monday evening for a trip to speak about climate change, rename a mountain and appear on a survivalist television show. On Tuesday, he will hike Exit Glacier, which is described as having a “moderately strenuous” trail, and tour the Kenai Fjords “to view the effects of climate change firsthand,” the White House says.
And Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Rick Santorum will speak at the Northwest Family Leadership Regional Summit meeting in Iowa, where the public funding of Planned Parenthood will be a major topic.
Democrats Inch Closer to Magic Number on Iran Deal
It’s a pivotal week for the Iran nuclear agreement as crucial remaining undecided Democrats make their views known, perhaps determining the deal’s fate a week before Congress is set to begin formally debating it.
Five more Democratic House members on Monday announced that they would back the agreement, putting new momentum behind efforts by the House Democratic leadership to build a firewall against a possible veto override. On Tuesday, Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, is to disclose his position on the nuclear pact at the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Delaware.
With at least 31 Senate Democrats now saying they would back Mr. Obama on the deal, the White House needs just three more to reach the 34 that would make a veto override impossible in the Senate. Mr. Coons and other undeclared Democratic lawmakers are being closely watched, including Senators Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee; Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; Michael Bennet of Colorado; Maria Cantwell of Washington; and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Bolstered by the strong likelihood of lining up 34 votes, Senate Democratic backers of the deal now hope they can assemble 41 of the 46 Democratic votes to block congressional disapproval of the legislation through a filibuster, sparing Mr. Obama from having to issue a veto on the measure. But the Democratic ability to succeed might not become clear until the Senate returns next week.
Given the Democratic direction on the deal, its opponents now realize they might have to begin reversing some Democratic commitments when lawmakers make it back to Washington.
— Carl Hulse
Our Favorites From The Times
Some influential Republican figures worry that Mr. Trump’s suggestions that he would raise taxes in certain areas could catch on with rivals in the presidential race.
Rick Perry has whittled down his staff in Iowa to one paid operative amid continuing fund-raising struggles.
And the size of the crowds that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has been drawing should pay its biggest dividends in Iowa.
Biden to Speak at $10,000-a-Couple Fund-Raising Dinner in Miami
When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visits Miami this week, he will have an opportunity to sound out some of the city’s biggest Democratic contributors about a presidential run.
It is not on his official schedule, but Mr. Biden will be the keynote speaker at a $10,000-a-couple fund-raising dinner on Wednesday for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the home of Stephen H. Bittel, a prominent commercial real estate developer who raised over $200,000 for Mr. Obama’s re-election.
The vice president has longstanding relationships in Miami’s donor community, and, as he considers a White House bid, has been in contact with Michael Adler, another real estate mogul there who raised well over six-figures for the Obama-Biden campaign in 2012.
Notably, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida will also be at the Wednesday dinner: Mr. Nelson, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, said on Friday that he did not think Mr. Biden would run for president.
— Jonathan Martin
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
The suggestion by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin that a border wall might also be worth considering on the United States-Canada border, was met, Fox News writes, by criticism from both parties.
And Gerald F. Seib at The Wall Street Journal compares this election cycle to that of 1968, seeing similarities in the issues, tensions and the threats to establishment candidates.
Republican hopes of taking back the Senate seat held by Mr. Bennet are faltering because of Republican Party chaos in Colorado, Politico reports.
The New Yorker examines whether Mrs. Clinton is partly responsible for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Like the Politics Newsletter? Get it delivered to your inbox.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered