On Wednesday, in an exclusive story for the New York Post, writer Josh Christenson uncovered another instance of mischief involving Hunter Biden’s laptop.
These revelations pertain to the sharing of campaign email lists, specifically between the 2015-2016 campaign teams of Kamala Harris and Beau Biden.
Allies of Joe Biden were skeptical that Kamala Harris was “ready” for the national spotlight during her 2016 US Senate campaign — but were apparently happy to hand over donor lists and even offer her a board seat with the Beau Biden Foundation after her camp dangled a $1,000 contribution, emails on first son Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show.
If completed, the convoluted transaction flouted the Foundation’s tax-exempt status and may have violated federal election law, experts told The Post this week.
Allies of Harris, then California’s attorney general, contacted Josh Alcorn, Beau Biden’s top political and fundraising adviser, with an unusual request in late 2015 — months after the former Delaware attorney general died of brain cancer.
It might seem unusual for the Harris campaign to make a request for donor email addresses from the “top political and fundraising adviser” of a deceased individual.
However, it’s noteworthy that they were willing to pay for these lists, effectively establishing a market value for the information.
“Just an FYI – Kamala Harris’s campaign reached out. They’d like to pay us about $1,000 for access to the email list,” Alcorn wrote in a December 30 email to Hunter and Hallie Biden, Beau’s widow.
The money would go to the [Beau Biden] campaign, then be transferred to the foundation,” explained Alcorn, who ran the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children from January 2016 to June 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Now, here’s the onion:
Three former members of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) told The Post that donor list swaps are common and legal among campaigns, as long as each pays fair market rate.
But funneling the Harris payment to the foundation in exchange for the donor list — after the Biden family made clear months earlier that Beau’s campaign funds would be donated to the foundation — would have been a different matter.
“Charitable organizations are not supposed to be involved in transactions with partisan campaign committees,” said Michael Toner, who served as FEC chairman in 2006 and as a commissioner between 2002 and 2007.
The initial issue to address is the status of the Beau Biden “campaign.” It seems that money was funneled through the campaign into the Beau Biden Foundation, a 501(c)(3) corporation.
This is concerning because non-profits like this are not supposed to be involved in partisan politics.
According to Mr. Christenson, the Beau Biden Foundation denied engaging in political campaign activities on a Form 990 filing.
The next aspect to consider is that the Beau Biden Foundation extended an invitation to Kamala Harris to join their board of directors.
This role does not come with a salary, but it holds significant sway and may potentially conflict with election finance regulations.
Making such contributions in exchange for appointments — such as a board seat — could also “raise more direct bribery questions,” according to Bradley Smith, a 2004 FEC chairman who also served as a commissioner from 2000 to 2005.
The third layer involves the potential illegal corporate contribution to a campaign through the sale of this donor list.
“They’re not charging the fair market value and that’s the way the FEC looks at things like this,” he added, pointing out that there is currently a $2,000 cap on the amount that campaigns can contribute to other campaigns.
“The fair market value of Campaign A’s list, which it gives to Campaign B, is worth $1,000. That is OK because it is still within the $2,000 limit,” von Spakovsky went on. “But assume that the value of Campaign B’s donor list is $4,000. They have just swapped lists. This was an uneven exchange, resulting in Campaign B making a $3,000 contribution to Campaign A, which is illegal because it violates the $2,000 contribution limit.”
If the donor list came from the foundation itself, he said, that would also amount to “an illegal corporate contribution.”
Harris never accepted the position.
Still: Hunter’s laptop is just a gold mine, isn’t it?
ICYMI: WATCH: CNBC Hosts Make Fun Of Kamala Advisor’s $5 Trillion in New Taxes
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