Within the last seven days, the godfather of campaign finance reform:
- Accepted millions from Harry Reid’s super PAC – the very practice he called "corrupt" and likened to "dancing with the devil"
- Vouched for Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness hours after she just so happened to pump six-figures into Wisconsin on his behalf
- Got caught forcing high school students to pay him thousands in pure profit
In this morning’s front page exposé, The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight Team uncovered an illegal scheme through which politicians like Russ Feingold benefited from straw donors. The Boston-based Thornton Law Firm reimbursed its employees within ten days for giving donations to candidates who would do its bidding in Washington.
The practice is considered to be "among the most serious campaign violations, in the view of both the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice."
Feingold raked in more from the scheme than any other Democrat running for the United States Senate in 2016.
- Thornton Law Firm Employees Contributed $45,000 To Russ Feingold’s 2016 Senate Campaign. (Center For Responsive Politics, Accessed 10/30/16)
Here’s how the scheme works:
Senator Feingold owes the people of Wisconsin answers to the following questions:
- Upon accepting the $45,000, did he know that he was benefiting from an illegal scheme?
- Are there any other illegal schemes he benefited from?
- Did he decide to abandon his 1992 Garage Door Pledge to the people of Wisconsin precisely because he knew that he could rake in tens of thousands of dollars from out-of-state straw donors?
- What is the Thornton Law Firm expecting in return for its illegal donation?
- If he benefited from any other illegal schemes, what promises did he make to those donors?
As we wait for Senator Feingold to provide answers, read more from The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight Team:
Law firm ‘bonuses’ tied to political donations
The Boston Globe
By Andrea Estes and Viveca Novak
October 29, 2016
Jon Tester didn’t come all the way from Montana for the scrambled eggs and bacon. The US senator, virtually unknown in Boston, was in a conference room at the Thornton Law Firm that June morning to cash in at one of the most reliable stops on the Democratic fund-raising circuit, a law firm that pours millions into the coffers of the party and its politicians.
Tester, a massive, jovial man who raises livestock on his family farm, was more compelling than many of the other breakfast guests, all of them political candidates the firm hoped would defend the interests of trial attorneys. But the drill was basically the same. The personal injury lawyers listened politely for a few minutes, then returned to their offices. And Tester walked away with $26,400 in checks.
But a striking thing happened the day Tester visited in 2010. Partner David C. Strouss received a payment from the firm labeled as a “bonus” that exactly equaled his $2,400 contribution to Tester’s campaign, the maximum allowed. A few days later, partner Garrett Bradley — until recently the House assistant majority leader on Beacon Hill — got a bonus, too, exactly matching his $2,400 gift to Tester.
This pattern of payments — contributions offset by bonus payments — was commonplace at Thornton, according to a review of law firm records by the Spotlight Team and the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks campaign finance data.
From 2010 through 2014, Strouss and Bradley, along with founding partner Michael Thornton and his wife, donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic Party fund-raising committees and a parade of politicians — from Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada to Hawaii gubernatorial candidate David Ige to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Over the same span, the lawyers received $1.4 million listed as “bonuses” in Thornton Law Firm records; more than 280 of the contributions precisely matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days.
That payback system, which involved other partners as well, helped make Thornton the 11th-ranked law firm nationally for political contributions in 2014, according to data analyzed by the center, even though it is not among the 100 largest in Massachusetts.
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That’s because reimbursing people for their political donations is generally illegal, several experts said. When political donors are repaid for their donations, it can conceal the real source of contributions, and enable the unnamed source of the funds to exceed state and federal contribution limits. And in some states — Massachusetts among them — political donations to state candidates from corporations and partnerships such as Thornton Law Firm are flatly illegal.
Reimbursing donors is “among the most serious campaign violations, in the view of both the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice,” said Daniel Petalas, an attorney who served as acting general counsel of the FEC until September.
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Over three election cycles — 2010, 2012, and 2014 — Thornton partners contributed more than $3.4 million to candidates and the party nationwide, especially Democratic Senate candidates who opposed overhauling the asbestos litigation system.
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Bonus checks that were reviewed by the Globe made clear that the payments were for political donations, with notations giving the name of the politician the partner had donated to.
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If those donations were determined to have actually been made by the firm — because the lawyers were reimbursed — they would be illegal, since political contributions from corporations or partnerships are prohibited in Massachusetts.
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