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Media conservatives have relied on discredited sources to push the false allegation that the White House broke the law and “bribed” Rep. Joe Sestak with an administration job in exchange for staying out of the Senate race. These sources have a history of promoting falsehoods and have significant ties to the GOP — which include supporting Sestak’s opponent in the Senate race.

Media
turn to dubious right-wing sources to charge White House with a crime

Hannity hosts Sekulow and Toensing to charge that a crime
occurred.
On the May 25 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity hosted Jay Sekulow,
chief counsel to the American
Center for Law and
Justice, and Victoria Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general during the
Reagan administration, to discuss the allegations about Sestak. Sekulow stated:
“[I]t’s not just one or two sections of federal law that’s been violated here.
… There could be four or even five sections of the federal criminal code that
was violated.” Toensing subsequently stated that “it’s against the law for
anyone to solicit a thing of value in return for a promise to get a federal
job, which is exactly what this White House official did, according to the congressman.”
Blogger Jim Hoft promoted Sekulow’s allegations on his Gateway
Pundit blog.

Rove claims that “somebody violated the law.” On the May 24 edition
of On the Record with Greta van Susteren, Fox News contributor Karl Rove
stated of the allegations about Sestak, “Look, that’s a violation of the
federal code — 18USC-600 says that you — a federal official cannot promise an
employment, a job in the federal government, in return for a political act.
Somebody violated the law.” Rove later said: “Joe Sestak said somebody offered
him a job. That’s a violation of law.” He further stated: “If he’s telling the
truth, he needs to come forward with the particulars of it and — and — so
that the White House can defend itself and the American people can figure out
whether or not he’s participating in a criminal cover-up, along with federal
officials.”

Morris fabricates an “impeachable offense.” On the May 24 edition
of Hannity, Fox News contributor Dick Morris pushed Morris’ fabrication, which Gateway Pundit
dubbed “the Joe Sestak bribe scandal.”

On FBN’s Happy Hour, Napolitano issues allegation of a
“felony,” a “bribe.” On the May 24 edition of Fox Business Network’s Happy Hour,
co-host Sandra Smith said to Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano,
“Well, obviously a big question is what are the ramifications of this
allegation.” Napolitano replied:

Well the ramifications are potentially enormous.
I mean to offer someone something of value in order to affect their official
behavior as a member of Congress is a felony. We call it a bribe. To offer
someone something of value to affect the outcome of an election is a felony.
Each of those carries five years with them. The government has an affirmative
obligation to investigate this.

National Review Online quotes Toensing to suggest the White House
was “asking Sestak to commit a crime.” The National Review Online’s Robert Costa
quoted Toensing in a May 26 article. Costa wrote:

While such stonewalling is common in Washington, if a United States attorney gets
curious, Sestak and the White House could find themselves facing questions from
a grand jury. “If someone in the White House asked Sestak to end his campaign
in order to get him appointed to a federal office, then they were asking Sestak
to commit a crime,” says Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney
general, criminal division, in the Reagan administration. “Politically,
Sestak’s behavior is bizarre, because you either accuse someone or you don’t.
You don’t just show a little ankle.”

Media sources for “crime” allegations have no credibility, and a history of pushing
falsehoods in the media

Victoria Toensing

Toensing has been criticized for “non-stop mugging” and for
lacking “impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism.” In 1998 Toensing, who
was working as outside counsel for the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce, was criticized for her actions in connection with the Monica
Lewinsky scandal. A February 15, 1998, Roll Call article (accessed via Nexis) reported: “Rep. Bill Clay (D-Mo) launched a stinging attack on the two lead
attorneys investigating the Teamsters campaign finance scandal yesterday,
alleging that the attorneys have lost their objectivity because of their
frequent television appearances and ‘participation’ in the scandal involving
ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.” The article also reported:

Clay’s rebuke of former independent counsel
Joseph diGenova and his wife and law firm partner, Victoria Toensing, who were
hired in November by a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee, came in
a letter to Chairman Bill Goodling (R-Pa) yesterday.

“Sadly, Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing have
become so closely aligned with the President’s critics and so personally
identified with the scandal itself as to have relinquished the air of
impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism required of leaders of a
serious congressional investigation,” wrote Clay, the ranking member of
the Education and the Workforce Committee.

“Put more bluntly,” Clay added, “the
couple’s relentless self-promotion and non-stop mugging for the likes of
Geraldo Rivera – however good for business and their egos – is unseemly,
undignified, unworthy of this committee, and generally detrimental to important
Congressional functions.”

Clay said in his letter
that a LEXIS/NEXIS search found 166 citations of diGenova and Toensing
commenting on the Lewinsky affair between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. The letter came
even as Republicans approved an additional $750,000 for the diGenova-Toensing
investigation.

Toensing
criticized for a conflict of interest for role as special counsel to House committee
investigation of the DOJ while also defending the committee chairman in a
separate DOJ investigation. Toensing and diGenova were criticized for having
a conflict of interest for serving as special counsel in the House Education and the
Workforce Committee probe into Justice Department oversight of the Teamsters union while also representing
Dan Burton, the committee’s chairman at the time, in a separate Justice
Department probe. A December 18, 1997, Roll Call article (accessed via
Nexis) reported: “Rep. Bill Clay (Mo), the full committee’s ranking Democrat,
has raised questions about the fact that the two attorneys are also
representing Burton in the Justice Department’s investigation of charges that
the Government Reform and Oversight chairman tried to extort campaign money
from a lobbyist during the 1996 election cycle.” The article also reported:

Democrats believe this creates a conflict of
interest because [Rep. Pete] Hoekstra’s [R-MI] subcommittee plans to
investigate the Justice Department’s decade-long oversight of the Teamsters,
specifically the agency’s handling of the union’s 1996 presidential election.

Clay says that diGenova and Toensing, a former
chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and a deputy assistant
attorney general in the Reagan Administration, should not lead a Congressional
investigation of the Justice Department while the department is conducting a
criminal investigation of one of their outside clients.

Toensing pushed media falsehood that Valerie
Plame’s CIA status was widely known on D.C. “cocktail circuit.” Toensing and co-author
Bruce Sanford promoted the false claim — op-ed:

Merely knowing that
Plame works for the CIA does not provide the knowledge that the government is
keeping her relationship secret. In fact, just the opposite is the case. If it
were known on the Washington cocktail circuit, as has been alleged, that
Wilson’s wife is with the agency, a possessor of that gossip would have no
reason to believe that information is classified — or that “affirmative
measures” were being taken to protect her cover.

In
an October 28, 2005, op-ed for The Washington Post,
Toensing wrote: “On Dec. 30, 2003, the day Fitzgerald was appointed special
counsel, he should have known (all he had to do was ask the CIA) that Plame was
not covert, knowledge that should have stopped the investigation right there.”

In
fact, Rep. Henry Waxman stated
on March 16, 2007, in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
hearing, that then-CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed to him that Plame was
“a covert agent.” Waxman stated: “General Hayden, the head
of the CIA, told me personally that she was — that if I said that she was a covert agent, it wouldn’t be an incorrect
statement.” Waxman also stated:

WAXMAN: But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared
these following comments for today’s hearing.

During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was undercover. Her
employment status with the CIA was classified information, prohibited from
disclosure under Executive Order 12958.

At
the time of the publication of Robert Novak’s column on July 14, 2003, Ms.
Wilson’s CIA employment status was covert. This was classified information.

Toensing
involved in discredited and
retracted article about Bill Clinton. In a February 27, 1998, article on Toensing and DiGenova’s involvement in a retracted Dallas Morning News
article claiming that a Secret Service
agent had witnessed President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a
“compromising situation,”
The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported:

The melodrama began when Toensing was approached by an intermediary
for a Secret Service agent who was said to be willing to testify that he saw
Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising situation. DiGenova passed this on to
Morning News reporter David Jackson (“Joe and I exchanged a few words over
that,” Toensing says), and the paper published the story in its Internet
edition, attributing the account to an unnamed lawyer “familiar with the
negotiations.” But by then the intermediary had told Toensing the agent
was backing off.

Hours later, the Morning News retracted the report, saying the
“longtime Washington
lawyer” had said the information was “inaccurate.”

The couple now say that Toensing, taking a call from Jackson hours before
deadline, told the reporter: “If Joe is your source, it’s wrong.”

“The bottom line is, they were told not to print and they
chose to print,” diGenova says. “I don’t know how much more helpful
you can be to a newspaper than to tell them not to print.”

Carl Leubsdorf, the paper’s Washington
bureau chief, says: “The reporter’s recollection of that conversation is
quite different. He was told that ‘if Joe told you that, he shouldn’t have.’ If
it had been the other way, the story of course would have been reassessed at
that point.”

Toensing has donated nearly $30,000 to GOP candidates and causes. According to Federal
Election Commission data, a donor named Victoria Toensing with a Chevy Chase,
Maryland, address has donated $29,916 to Republican candidates or organizations
that support Republican campaigns, including $1,000 to George W Bush’s 2000
Presidential campaign, $500 to John McCain’s 1998 Senate re-election campaign,
and $13,000 to The Wish List, an organization
that “raises money to identify, train, support and elect more Republican women
leaders to public office at all levels of government.” Toensing contributed a
total of $1,150 to Democratic candidates.

Toensing reportedly served on host committee for GOP delegate
candidate. The Washington Examiner reported that Toensing served on the hosting
committee for Republican Barbara Comstock’s Virginia Delegate campaign.

Toensing served as Reagan deputy assistant
attorney general. Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney
general in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department during the
Reagan administration and was Sen. Barry Goldwater’s chief counsel.

Jay Sekulow

Sekulow criticized for allegedly using his nonprofit
organizations’ finances for personal profit. A 2005 Legal Times article
(retrieved via Factiva) reported that an investigation of Sekulow’s finances
revealed “a financial empire that generates millions of dollars a year and
supports a lavish lifestyle” that is “at odds with his role as the
head of a charitable organization that solicits small donations for legal work
in God’s name.” The article reported:

But there is another side to Jay
Sekulow, one that, until now, has been obscured from the public. It is
the Jay Sekulow who, through the ACLJ and a string of
interconnected nonprofit and for-profit entities, has built a financial empire
that generates millions of dollars a year and supports a lavish lifestyle –
complete with multiple homes, chauffeur-driven cars, and a private jet that he
once used to ferry Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

That less-known side of Sekulow was revealed in several interviews with
former associates of his and in hundreds of pages of court and tax documents
reviewed by Legal Times. Critics say Sekulow’s
lifestyle is at odds with his role as the head of a charitable organization
that solicits small donations for legal work in God’s name.

For example, in 2001 one of Sekulow’s
nonprofit organizations paid a total of $2,374,833 to purchase two homes used
primarily by Sekulow and his wife. The same nonprofit also
subsidized a third home he uses in North
Carolina.

At various times in recent years, Sekulow’s wife, brother, sister-in-law, and
two sons have been on the boards or payrolls of organizations under his control
or have received generous payments as contractors. Sekulow’s brother Gary is the chief financial officer of both
nonprofit organizations that fund his activities, a fact that detractors say
diminishes accountability for his spending.

According to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service,
funds from his nonprofits have also been used to lease a private jet from
companies under his family’s control. And two years ago, Sekulow outsourced
his own legal services from the ACLJ, shifting from a position with a publicly
disclosed salary to that of a private contractor that requires no public
disclosure. He acknowledged to Legal Times that his salary from that
arrangement is “above $600,000″ a year.

Sekulow’s financial dealings deeply trouble some of the people who
have worked for him, leading several to speak with Legal Times during the past
six months about their concerns — before Sekulow assumed his high-profile role promoting
President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees.

“Some of us truly believed God told us to serve Jay,”
says one former employee, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
“But not to help him live like Louis XIV. We are coming forward because we
need to believe there is fairness in this world.”

Another says: “Jay sends so many discordant signals. He talks
about doing God’s work for his donors, and then he flies off in his plane to
play golf.”

Still another told Legal Times, “The cause was so good and so
valid, but at some point you can’t sacrifice what is right for the sake of the
cause.”

The
article also details how money solicited for donations to Pat Robertson’s ACLJ
sometimes ended up with Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, a separate
Sekulow organization:

When donors respond to solicitations and write
out checks to the ACLJ, some of the money never makes it into ACLJ coffers but
instead winds up with CASE, Sekulow’s separate entity. Certain solicitations
mention CASE in fine print as an entity “doing business as” the ACLJ.
Sekulow confirms that checks resulting from these mailings are routed to CASE.

The amounts involved are substantial. CASE
reported receiving nearly $14 million in donations for 2003. Its board of
directors has three members: Jay Sekulow; his wife, Pam; and his son Jordan.

Sekulow pushed false claim that the Obama administration
inappropriately subpoenaed a website’s visitor list. Appearing on the
November 10, 2009, edition of Fox News’ Glenn Beck, Sekulow advanced the
falsehood that “the White House” was “intimidating” an “independent news site” by
issuing a subpoena for that website’s visitor list. Sekulow charged that the
administration was “playing very dangerously with media and with the new media
– very, very dangerous.” But the subpoena was issued by a Bush administration appointee on
January 23, 2009 — just days after Obama’s inauguration and prior to Eric
Holder being sworn in as attorney general on February 2. The Obama
administration withdrew the subpoena in February 2009 — months before Sekulow
advanced the falsehood on Fox.

Sekulow donated $1,000 to radical who prayed that abortion doctor
would “either be converted to God or that calamity will strike him.” According to FEC
reports, Sekulow donated $1,000 to Randall Terry for Congress in 1997. In 1992,
Terry appeared in a video that CBS News’ Lesley Stahl said, “shows him asking his followers to ‘pray for either the salvation or the death‘ ” of a Colorado physician. 60 Minutes then aired video of Terry stating, “But pray that this family will
either be converted to God or that calamity will strike him.” Terry has since commented that the murdered abortion doctor George
Tiller “reaped what he sowed.” Terry also reportedly served three months in federal prison
for arranging to have a dead fetus delivered to Bill Clinton at the 1992
Democratic National Convention.

Sekulow supported a
state law denying gay people the possibility of full protection of the law. In 1996, Sekulow filed
an amicus brief on behalf of the ACLJ opposing the overturning of a Colorado
amendment that would have prevented Colorado
municipalities from recognizing gay people as a protected class. The Supreme
Court overturned the amendment, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing that “the amendment imposes a
special disability upon those persons alone. Homosexuals are forbidden the
safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint.”

Sekulow argued that a
“ban on same-sex sodomy … furthers public morality.” Sekulow and the ACLJ
filed an amicus brief opposing overturning American
anti-sodomy laws in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, stating that to
recognize “extramarital sex acts as ‘fundamental rights’ would jeopardize
the wide array of state laws governing even consensual, adult sexual
activity” and that the Constitution “neither does nor ought to
enshrine the Sexual Revolution.” The brief also argued that a “ban on
same-sex sodomy permissibly furthers public morality” and that there are
“extensively documented health risks of same-sex sodomy.”

Sekulow has long history of donating to Republican campaigns. FEC reports show that a
Jay Sekulow and the American
Center of Law and Justice
have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans, including Sen. Saxby
Chambliss, the Georgia Republican Party, Sen. John Thune, John Ashcroft, Mitt
Romney, and George W. Bush.

Karl Rove

Rove viciously smeared Department of Education official as having
advocated for NAMBLA. Rove falsely claimed that Kevin Jennings, a Department of
Education official, had engaged in “high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of
things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school
curricula.” Rove provided no evidence that Jennings ever engaged in any advocacy of NAMBLA, and
Rove’s suggestion that support for “gay rights” is somehow related to
support for NAMBLA is an anti-gay smear.

Rove forwarded absurd claim that Obama administration is pushing
veterans toward assisted suicide. Rove pushed the falsehood that the Veterans Health
Administration was directing veterans to an end-of-life educational booklet,
“Your Life, Your Choices,” that includes contact information for
“a group that believes in assisted suicide,” and thus “the kind
of guidance we’re giving returning veterans” is “you ought to go to
an assisted suicide group.” In fact, that group is not referenced in the
current version of the document, a fact that Jim Towey — who originated the
smear of the booklet as a “death book” — has acknowledged.

Rove helped disclose Plame’s identity as a CIA official. Novak identified
both Rove
and former Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage
as the column, and Time magazine’s Matt Cooper named Rove as the source who identified
Plame as an employee of the CIA during a telephone conversation on July 11,
2003.

Rove leveled attack on Sotomayor based on false claim that she and
Alito were colleagues. Rove claimed that he “got wind of”
allegations that Sonia Sotomayor “was combative, opinionated,
argumentative” while reviewing the record of her “colleague on the
court” Samuel Alito. In fact, Sotomayor served on the 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals; Alito served on the 3rd Circuit.

Rove falsely asserted that Army Field Manual prohibits good
cop-bad cop interrogations. Discussing President Obama’s executive order stating that a
detainee in U.S.
custody cannot be subjected to interrogation techniques not listed in the Army
Field Manual, Rove falsely asserted that “[t]he Army Field Manual …
prohibits you from using good cop-bad cop in interrogating.” In fact, the
Army Field Manual explicitly permits good cop-bad cop interrogations under the
name of “Mutt and Jeff” interrogations, which involve two
interrogators “display[ing] opposing personalities and attitudes toward
the source.”

Rove falsely claimed Obama was not a professor. Claiming that he had a
“list of exaggerations” by Obama, Rove said that Obama claimed, ” ‘I was a law
school professor,’ ” before adding: “No, you were an
instructor.” But Obama was, in fact, a professor at the University of
Chicago Law School.

Rove misrepresented Obama’s comments to accuse him of “arrogance.” Rove wrote, “After Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright
repeated his anti-American slurs at the National Press Club, Mr. Obama said
their relationship was forever changed — but not because of what he’d said
about America. Instead, Mr. Obama complained, ‘I don’t think he showed much
concern for me.’ ” Rove cited this as evidence of Obama’s “arrogance –
even self centeredness.” However, Rove cropped Obama’s quote, excluding his
next statement: “[M]ore importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern
for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for
the American people and with the American people.”

Rove distorted Obama statement to falsely suggest he was
considering “a universal health care system like the European
countries.” Rove wrote that, in 2008, the Obama campaign
“ran ads attacking ‘government-run health care’ as ‘extreme.’ Now Mr.
Obama is asking, as he did at a townhall meeting last month, ‘Why not do a
universal health care system like the European countries?’ Maybe because he was
elected by intimating that would be ‘extreme’?” In fact, in the town hall
remarks Rove quoted, President Obama was paraphrasing the question he had just
been asked — “Why can we not have a universal health care system, like
many European countries, where people are treated based on needs rather than
financial resources?” — before explaining why he opposed such a system.

Rove falsely claimed Obama didn’t warn that economy could get
worse even with stimulus. Rove falsely claimed that “[President] Obama never said
if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse.”
In fact, in a January 8, 2009, speech about his economic recovery plan, Obama
stated, “It will not come easy or happen overnight, and it is altogether
likely that things may get worse before they get better.”

Rove blatantly misrepresented Obama’s comments about tea party
participants. Rove claimed that President Obama
“dismisses” tea party participants “as an extremist ‘strain
[that] has existed in politics for a long time.’ ” In fact, in the
interview Rove quoted, Obama explicitly said that tea party participants are
not “on the fringe” and that the movement includes people with
“legitimate concerns.”

As a campaign consultant, Rove reportedly used whisper campaigns
against opponents, including the allegation that a Democratic incumbent judge
was a pedophile. In a November 2004 article in The Atlantic, Joshua Green reported:

Some of Rove’s darker tactics cut even closer to
the bone. One constant throughout his career is the prevalence of whisper
campaigns against opponents. The 2000 primary campaign, for example, featured a
widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in
Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered
mentally unfit for office. More often a Rove campaign questions an opponent’s
sexual orientation. Bush’s 1994 race against Ann Richards featured a rumor that
she was a lesbian, along with a rare instance of such a tactic’s making it into
the public record — when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed
himself, perhaps inadvertently, to be quoted criticizing Richards for
“appointing avowed homosexual activists” to state jobs.

Another example of Rove’s methods involves a
former ally of Rove’s from Texas,
John Weaver, who, coincidentally, managed McCain’s bid in 2000. Many Republican
operatives in Texas tell the story of another
close race of sorts: a competition in the 1980s to become the dominant
Republican consultant in Texas.
In 1986 Weaver and Rove both worked on Bill Clements’s successful campaign for
governor, after which Weaver was named executive director of the state
Republican Party. Both were emerging as leading consultants, but Weaver’s star
seemed to be rising faster. The details vary slightly according to which
insider tells the story, but the main point is always the same: after Weaver
went into business for himself and lured away one of Rove’s top employees, Rove
spread a rumor that Weaver had made a pass at a young man at a state Republican
function. Weaver won’t reply to the smear, but those close to him told me of
their outrage at the nearly two-decades-old lie. Weaver was first made
unwelcome in some Texas Republican circles, and eventually, following McCain’s
2000 campaign, he left the Republican Party altogether. He has continued an
active and successful career as a political consultant — in Texas
and Alabama,
among other states — and is currently working for McCain as a Democrat.

But no other example of Rove’s extreme tactics
that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial
campaign in Alabama.
In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove
client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent
Democratic justice and, as George Wallace’s son-in-law, a member in good
standing of Alabama’s
first family of politics, was no stranger to hardball politics. “The
Wallace family history and what they all went through, that’s pretty rough
politics,” says Joe Perkins, who managed Kennedy’s campaign. “But it
was a whole new dimension with Rove.”

This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his
office in Montgomery.
I had hoped to discuss how it was that he had beaten one of the savviest
political strategists in modern history, and I expected to hear more of the
raucous campaign tales that are a staple of Alabama politics. Neither Kennedy nor our
meeting was anything like what I had anticipated. A small man, impeccably
dressed and well-mannered, Kennedy appeared to derive little satisfaction from
having beaten Rove. In fact, he seemed shaken, even ten years later. He quietly
explained how Rove’s arrival had poisoned the judicial climate by putting
politics above matters of law and justice — “collateral damage,” he
called it, from the win-at-all-costs attitude that now prevails in judicial
races.

He talked about the viciousness of the
“slash-and-burn” campaign, and how Rove appealed to the worst
elements of human nature. “People vote in Alabama for two reasons,” Kennedy told
me. “Anger and fear. It’s a state that votes against somebody rather than
for them. Rove understood how to put his finger right on the trigger
point.” Kennedy seemed most bothered by the personal nature of the
attacks, which, in addition to the usual anti-trial-lawyer litany, had included
charges that he was mingling campaign funds with those of a nonprofit
children’s foundation he was involved with. In the end he eked out a victory by
less than one percentage point.

Kennedy leaned forward and said, “After the
race my wife, Peggy, was at the supermarket checkout line. She picked up a copy
of Reader’s Digest and nearly collapsed on her watermelon. She called me and
said, ‘Sit down. You’re not going to believe this.’” Her husband was
featured in an article on “America’s
worst judges.” Kennedy attributed this to Rove’s attacks.

When his term on the court ended, he chose not
to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent
years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he
had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children. In the early 1980s
he had helped to start the Children’s Trust Fund of Alabama, and he later
established the Corporate Foundation for Children, a private, nonprofit
organization. At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of
the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove’s
signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems
unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.

Some of Kennedy’s campaign commercials touted
his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children.
“We were trying to counter the positives from that ad,” a former Rove
staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper
campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. “It was our standard practice to
use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign
information,” the staffer went on. “That was a major device we used
for the transmission of this stuff. The students at the law school are from all
over the state, and that’s one of the ways that Karl got the information out –
he knew the law students would take it back to their home towns and it would
get out.” This would create the impression that the lie was in fact common
knowledge across the state. “What Rove does,” says Joe Perkins,
“is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not
subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin’,
tobacco-chewin’, pickup-drivin’ kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed,
well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a
homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take.”

Dick Morris

Morris: “Those
crazies in Montana
who say, ‘We’re going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’
– well, they’re beginning to have a case.” Appearing on the March
31, 2009, edition of Fox News’ Your World, Morris concocted a conspiracy
theory about a “super-national authority” that will oversee U.S.
financial institutions and asserted that because President Obama’s policies
are “internationalist … [t]hose crazies in Montana who say, ‘We’re going
to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’ — well, they’re
beginning to have a case.”

Morris fabricated and
then retracted the allegation that former Attorney General Reno threatened Clinton that she would “tell the truth about Waco.” During an appearance on
the April 20 edition of Hannity, Morris claimed that then-Attorney
General Janet Reno threatened President Clinton
in early 1997 by saying that if he didn’t re-appoint her as attorney general,
she was “going to tell truth about Waco.”
After host Sean Hannity said, “I don’t remember you telling this story
before,” Morris replied, “No, it’s never been said before.”
Morris went on to say: “I know that he told me — Clinton
told me — that I couldn’t not appoint Reno
because she would have turned on me over Waco.
That’s the phrase he used.” Morris’ claim contradicted the version of
events he told in his 2004 book. Morris subsequently retracted the version of the story he told on Hannity.

Morris promoted the
“death panels” “lie of the year.” Morris has repeatedly forwarded the “lie of the year” that health care reform legislation
contains
a “death panel”
or promotes
“euthanasia.”

Morris
claimed Obama is “anti-American.” Morris appeared on the
April 13 edition of Fox & Friends and said that Obama’s nuclear policy
“might” make him “the first anti-American president we’ve ever
had.” Morris has also stated that Obama ‘s foreign policy “can
only be described as anti-American.”

Morris regularly
fundraises for GOP and has rallied for Toomey. Dick Morris frequently
engages in ethically dubious behavior and unabashed advocacy
for GOP candidates and causes. In his Newsmax column,
Morris predicted that Toomey will be “[t]he new senator from Pennsylvania.” Morris regularly endorses and
fundraises for Republican candidates and was scheduled
to appear at an April event for the Cumberland County Republican Committee
(PA), a February
event
for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, and a December 2009 fundraiser
for Tom Corbett for Governor (PA).  

Morris
repeatedly used his Fox News platform to fundraise for GOPTrust.com without
noting his apparent financial ties to the organization. Between October 27,
2008, and November 17, 2008, Morris mentioned GOPTrust.com during at least 13 Fox News
appearances and asked viewers to “give funds to GOPTrust.com,” the
website of the National Republican Trust PAC, without
disclosing that the organization has paid $24,000 to a company apparently
connected to Morris. Through publicly available records with the Federal
Election Commission (FEC), Media Matters
for America found that GOPTrust.com paid Triangulation
Strategies at least $24,000 from the beginning of October 2008 to November 24,
2008, mostly for “Email Communication.” The “Mailing
Address” for Triangulation Strategies is listed in one of the National Republican Trust
PAC’s FEC filings as “dickmorris.com.”

Andrew Napolitano

Napolitano hosts Jones
and Ventura as
they push 9-11 trutherism and other conspiracy theories. Napolitano has used his
FoxNews.com show to praise and promote two of the most visible
leaders of the 9-11 Truth movement, Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura. Napolitano indicates in his book Lies the Government Told You that he does not believe the government
carried out the 9-11 attacks.

• On a March edition of Freedom Watch, Napolitano called
  guest Ventura a “champion of exposing government fraud and
  lies,” and promoted Ventura’s belief that the government either
  “participate[d]” in 9-11 or “knew it was going to happen
  and didn’t do very much to stop it.” Napolitano said Ventura is a
  “champion of exposing government fraud and lies” and
  “uncover[s]” the government with “passion and zeal.”
  At no point did Napolitano dispute or challenge Ventura’s 9-11 conspiracy theory
  “that if we didn’t participate in it, we certainly knew it was going
  to happen.” To the contrary, Napolitano wondered if “someday we
  will look on 9-11 the way we look on the JFK assassination today, that is,
  where people who question the government’s involvement will be
  mainstreamed, rather than looked upon as an extremist fringe.”

• Napolitano has hosted “the great” Jones to push
  anti-government conspiracy theories about one-world government and his DVD The
  Obama Deception, which describes Obama as a “hoax” by
  the New World Order to impose “forced National Service, domestic civilian
  spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA
  camps and Martial Law.” Napolitano is a regular guest on Jones’ radio
  program, on which the two frequently push anti-government conspiracy theories
  and rhetoric. Napolitano has called the self-described 9-11 Truth
  “founding father” a “dear friend” who “we go to”
  because of “your zeal and your courage and your fearlessness in
  exposing” the government. During one appearance on Jones’ radio program,
  Jones and Napolitano both agree that there is a “one world government”
  that is forcing its will on Americans.

Napolitano fabricated
conspiracy that Obama was using health care reform to create an army of
doctors.
During the health care reform debate, Napolitano fabricated and promoted the conspiracy theory that President Obama was
creating “a civilian corps just as powerful, just as well funded as the
military” through the Ready Reserve Corps. He later joined Fox Business’
Charles Gasparino in likening the provision — which would supplement a
200-year-old public health corps with a reserve corps — to “bringing back
the draft.”

Napolitano called
Palin’s “death panel” claim “a legitimate concern from a fair reading of the
bill.” On
his Fox News Radio show, Napolitano said that Sarah Palin’s “death panels” claim
about the health care reform bill — named by Politifact as the 2009 Lie of the Year
– constituted “a legitimate concern from a fair reading of this bill.”

Napolitano advanced the
falsehood that Rep. Matheson was bribed to support health care reform with a
judicial nomination for his brother. After the house voted on the health care reform
bill, Napolitano advanced the smear that Obama bribed Rep. Jim
Matheson (D-UT) to vote in favor of health care reform by appointing his
brother to the appeals court and falsely claimed that after Obama’s actions,
Matheson “changed his vote to yes.” In
fact, Rep. Matheson again voted “No” on health care reform, and
allegations of a deal between Matheson and the White House are completely
baseless.

Napolitano promoted
media falsehood that Valerie Plame’s CIA status was widely known before Novak’s
disclosure. On the October 31, 2005, edition of Bill O’Reilly’s now-defunct
radio show, Napolitano claimed
that “at least one” of his Fox News colleagues had alleged to have been present
at a party where former Ambassador Joe Wilson IV introduced Plame as “my CIA operative
wife.” Napolitano used his anonymously sourced claim to question whether Plame
“was, in fact, undercover” when her identity was disclosed by Novak. Napolitano
did not explain why his source did not publicly repeat the story. Fitzgerald made clear that Plame’s identity “was not widely
known outside the intelligence community,” including by Plame’s “friends,
neighbors, [and] college classmates.”

Napolitano said a
victory by Republican Pat Toomey — Sestak’s opponent in the Pennsylvania Senate race — win would be
“a very sweet victory.” On his Fox News Radio show, Napolitano
interviewed Toomey, Sestak’s Republican opponent for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats, and stated: “A lot of us want you to win. I’m being
very open with this.” He continued: “Hope that you run against Arlen Specter
and beat him. It would be a very sweet victory.” Napolitano has promoted other
Republican causes as well; for example, he has promoted an anti-health care reform rally hosted
by Michelle Bachman, commenting that she “wants your help in the fight” and
appeared at a February fundraiser for the Acadiana Republican Women (LA) as well
as an August 2009 fundraiser for Rep. Ron Paul (TX).

Legal experts dispute claims that a crime was
committed

Bush ethics lawyer calls claim that a job offer is a bribe
“difficult to support.” In a post on
the Legal Ethics Forum blog, former Bush administration chief ethics lawyer
Richard Painter wrote: “The allegation that the job offer was somehow a
‘bribe’ in return for Sestak not running in the primary is difficult to
support.” Painter also subsequent blog post replying to Issa’s call for a special
prosecutor to be appointed to investigate possible criminal charges, Painter article:

“People offer members of Congress things
all the time,” Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and now the
executive director of the liberal government watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told CNSNews.com. “I don’t
think there is any issue. I don’t see the crime.”

[...]

If it is true, such a trade would be an
indictment of the system, Sloan of CREW said, but not likely illegal.

“A quid pro quo has to offer something of
value in exchange for something,” Sloan said. “If you agree not to
run for the Senate and we’ll make you secretary of the Navy — that offers no
monetary value. It’s just the unseemly side of politics.”

Sloan: “There is no bribery case here.” Talking Points Memo’s Zachary Roth reported in
a May 25 post that “several experts tell TPMmuckraker this is much ado
about nothing” and quoted Sloan saying, “There is no bribery case
here. … No statute has ever been used to prosecute anybody for bribery in
circumstances like this.” Sloan also said: “It’s not at all about
whether there was actual criminal wrongdoing. … It’s about how to go after
Sestak.”

Zeidenberg: “Horrible precedent” to treat
“horsetrading” “in the criminal context.” Roth also quoted Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor
with the Justice Department’s Public Integrity unit, saying “Talk about
criminalizing the political process!… It would be horrible precedent if what
really truly is political horsetrading were viewed in the criminal context of:
is this a corrupt bribe?”

Kaufman: “Tell me a White House that didn’t do this,
back to George Washington.” The New York Times article (from
the Nexis database) reported that President Reagan’s political adviser Ed
Rollins planned to offer former California Sen. S.I. Hayakawa a job in the
administration in exchange for not seeking re-election.

From the AP article:

Sen. S.I. Hayakawa on Wednesday spurned a Reagan
administration suggestion that if he drops out of the crowded Republican Senate
primary race in California,
President Reagan would find him a job.

“I’m not interested,” said the
75-year-old Hayakawa.

“I do not want to be an ambassador, and I
do not want an administration post.”

[...]

In an interview earlier this week, Ed Rollins,
who will become the president’s chief political adviser in January, said
Hayakawa would be offered an administration post if he decided not to seek
re-election. No offer has been made directly to Hayakawa, Rollins said.

Similarly, Hayakawa said in a statement, “I
have not contacted the White House in regard to any administration or
ambassadorial post, and they have not been in contact with me.”

AP: “Ethics attorneys in Washington said such offers are
common.” A February 19 AP article reported: “Ethics attorneys in Washington said such
offers are common. Melanie Sloan, director of the watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,
described it as ‘politics as usual.’ ”

Wash. Post: “This would
hardly be the first administration” to offer a job to “clear the
field.” A May 25 Washington
Post editorial critical
of the Obama administration’s response stated: “At the same time, of
course, political considerations play a role in political appointments. This
would hardly be the first administration to use appointments to try to clear
the field for a favored candidate.”

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Media conservatives have relied on discredited sources to push the false allegation that the White House broke the law and “bribed” Rep. Joe Sestak with an administration job in exchange for staying out of the Senate race. These sources have a history of promoting falsehoods and have significant ties to the GOP — which include supporting Sestak’s opponent in the Senate race.

Media
turn to dubious right-wing sources to charge White House with a crime

Hannity hosts Sekulow and Toensing to charge that a crime
occurred.
On the May 25 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity hosted Jay Sekulow,
chief counsel to the American
Center for Law and
Justice, and Victoria Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general during the
Reagan administration, to discuss the allegations about Sestak. Sekulow stated:
“[I]t’s not just one or two sections of federal law that’s been violated here.
… There could be four or even five sections of the federal criminal code that
was violated.” Toensing subsequently stated that “it’s against the law for
anyone to solicit a thing of value in return for a promise to get a federal
job, which is exactly what this White House official did, according to the congressman.”
Blogger Jim Hoft promoted Sekulow’s allegations on his Gateway
Pundit blog.

Rove claims that “somebody violated the law.” On the May 24 edition
of On the Record with Greta van Susteren, Fox News contributor Karl Rove
stated of the allegations about Sestak, “Look, that’s a violation of the
federal code — 18USC-600 says that you — a federal official cannot promise an
employment, a job in the federal government, in return for a political act.
Somebody violated the law.” Rove later said: “Joe Sestak said somebody offered
him a job. That’s a violation of law.” He further stated: “If he’s telling the
truth, he needs to come forward with the particulars of it and — and — so
that the White House can defend itself and the American people can figure out
whether or not he’s participating in a criminal cover-up, along with federal
officials.”

Morris fabricates an “impeachable offense.” On the May 24 edition
of Hannity, Fox News contributor Dick Morris pushed Morris’ fabrication, which Gateway Pundit
dubbed “the Joe Sestak bribe scandal.”

On FBN’s Happy Hour, Napolitano issues allegation of a
“felony,” a “bribe.” On the May 24 edition of Fox Business Network’s Happy Hour,
co-host Sandra Smith said to Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano,
“Well, obviously a big question is what are the ramifications of this
allegation.” Napolitano replied:

Well the ramifications are potentially enormous.
I mean to offer someone something of value in order to affect their official
behavior as a member of Congress is a felony. We call it a bribe. To offer
someone something of value to affect the outcome of an election is a felony.
Each of those carries five years with them. The government has an affirmative
obligation to investigate this.

National Review Online quotes Toensing to suggest the White House
was “asking Sestak to commit a crime.” The National Review Online’s Robert Costa
quoted Toensing in a May 26 article. Costa wrote:

While such stonewalling is common in Washington, if a United States attorney gets
curious, Sestak and the White House could find themselves facing questions from
a grand jury. “If someone in the White House asked Sestak to end his campaign
in order to get him appointed to a federal office, then they were asking Sestak
to commit a crime,” says Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney
general, criminal division, in the Reagan administration. “Politically,
Sestak’s behavior is bizarre, because you either accuse someone or you don’t.
You don’t just show a little ankle.”

Media sources for “crime” allegations have no credibility, and a history of pushing
falsehoods in the media

Victoria Toensing

Toensing has been criticized for “non-stop mugging” and for
lacking “impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism.” In 1998 Toensing, who
was working as outside counsel for the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce, was criticized for her actions in connection with the Monica
Lewinsky scandal. A February 15, 1998, Roll Call article (accessed via Nexis) reported: “Rep. Bill Clay (D-Mo) launched a stinging attack on the two lead
attorneys investigating the Teamsters campaign finance scandal yesterday,
alleging that the attorneys have lost their objectivity because of their
frequent television appearances and ‘participation’ in the scandal involving
ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.” The article also reported:

Clay’s rebuke of former independent counsel
Joseph diGenova and his wife and law firm partner, Victoria Toensing, who were
hired in November by a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee, came in
a letter to Chairman Bill Goodling (R-Pa) yesterday.

“Sadly, Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing have
become so closely aligned with the President’s critics and so personally
identified with the scandal itself as to have relinquished the air of
impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism required of leaders of a
serious congressional investigation,” wrote Clay, the ranking member of
the Education and the Workforce Committee.

“Put more bluntly,” Clay added, “the
couple’s relentless self-promotion and non-stop mugging for the likes of
Geraldo Rivera – however good for business and their egos – is unseemly,
undignified, unworthy of this committee, and generally detrimental to important
Congressional functions.”

Clay said in his letter
that a LEXIS/NEXIS search found 166 citations of diGenova and Toensing
commenting on the Lewinsky affair between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. The letter came
even as Republicans approved an additional $750,000 for the diGenova-Toensing
investigation.

Toensing
criticized for a conflict of interest for role as special counsel to House committee
investigation of the DOJ while also defending the committee chairman in a
separate DOJ investigation. Toensing and diGenova were criticized for having
a conflict of interest for serving as special counsel in the House Education and the
Workforce Committee probe into Justice Department oversight of the Teamsters union while also representing
Dan Burton, the committee’s chairman at the time, in a separate Justice
Department probe. A December 18, 1997, Roll Call article (accessed via
Nexis) reported: “Rep. Bill Clay (Mo), the full committee’s ranking Democrat,
has raised questions about the fact that the two attorneys are also
representing Burton in the Justice Department’s investigation of charges that
the Government Reform and Oversight chairman tried to extort campaign money
from a lobbyist during the 1996 election cycle.” The article also reported:

Democrats believe this creates a conflict of
interest because [Rep. Pete] Hoekstra’s [R-MI] subcommittee plans to
investigate the Justice Department’s decade-long oversight of the Teamsters,
specifically the agency’s handling of the union’s 1996 presidential election.

Clay says that diGenova and Toensing, a former
chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and a deputy assistant
attorney general in the Reagan Administration, should not lead a Congressional
investigation of the Justice Department while the department is conducting a
criminal investigation of one of their outside clients.

Toensing pushed media falsehood that Valerie
Plame’s CIA status was widely known on D.C. “cocktail circuit.” Toensing and co-author
Bruce Sanford promoted the false claim — op-ed:

Merely knowing that
Plame works for the CIA does not provide the knowledge that the government is
keeping her relationship secret. In fact, just the opposite is the case. If it
were known on the Washington cocktail circuit, as has been alleged, that
Wilson’s wife is with the agency, a possessor of that gossip would have no
reason to believe that information is classified — or that “affirmative
measures” were being taken to protect her cover.

In
an October 28, 2005, op-ed for The Washington Post,
Toensing wrote: “On Dec. 30, 2003, the day Fitzgerald was appointed special
counsel, he should have known (all he had to do was ask the CIA) that Plame was
not covert, knowledge that should have stopped the investigation right there.”

In
fact, Rep. Henry Waxman stated
on March 16, 2007, in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
hearing, that then-CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed to him that Plame was
“a covert agent.” Waxman stated: “General Hayden, the head
of the CIA, told me personally that she was — that if I said that she was a covert agent, it wouldn’t be an incorrect
statement.” Waxman also stated:

WAXMAN: But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared
these following comments for today’s hearing.

During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was undercover. Her
employment status with the CIA was classified information, prohibited from
disclosure under Executive Order 12958.

At
the time of the publication of Robert Novak’s column on July 14, 2003, Ms.
Wilson’s CIA employment status was covert. This was classified information.

Toensing
involved in discredited and
retracted article about Bill Clinton. In a February 27, 1998, article on Toensing and DiGenova’s involvement in a retracted Dallas Morning News
article claiming that a Secret Service
agent had witnessed President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a
“compromising situation,”
The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported:

The melodrama began when Toensing was approached by an intermediary
for a Secret Service agent who was said to be willing to testify that he saw
Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising situation. DiGenova passed this on to
Morning News reporter David Jackson (“Joe and I exchanged a few words over
that,” Toensing says), and the paper published the story in its Internet
edition, attributing the account to an unnamed lawyer “familiar with the
negotiations.” But by then the intermediary had told Toensing the agent
was backing off.

Hours later, the Morning News retracted the report, saying the
“longtime Washington
lawyer” had said the information was “inaccurate.”

The couple now say that Toensing, taking a call from Jackson hours before
deadline, told the reporter: “If Joe is your source, it’s wrong.”

“The bottom line is, they were told not to print and they
chose to print,” diGenova says. “I don’t know how much more helpful
you can be to a newspaper than to tell them not to print.”

Carl Leubsdorf, the paper’s Washington
bureau chief, says: “The reporter’s recollection of that conversation is
quite different. He was told that ‘if Joe told you that, he shouldn’t have.’ If
it had been the other way, the story of course would have been reassessed at
that point.”

Toensing has donated nearly $30,000 to GOP candidates and causes. According to Federal
Election Commission data, a donor named Victoria Toensing with a Chevy Chase,
Maryland, address has donated $29,916 to Republican candidates or organizations
that support Republican campaigns, including $1,000 to George W Bush’s 2000
Presidential campaign, $500 to John McCain’s 1998 Senate re-election campaign,
and $13,000 to The Wish List, an organization
that “raises money to identify, train, support and elect more Republican women
leaders to public office at all levels of government.” Toensing contributed a
total of $1,150 to Democratic candidates.

Toensing reportedly served on host committee for GOP delegate
candidate. The Washington Examiner reported that Toensing served on the hosting
committee for Republican Barbara Comstock’s Virginia Delegate campaign.

Toensing served as Reagan deputy assistant
attorney general. Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney
general in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department during the
Reagan administration and was Sen. Barry Goldwater’s chief counsel.

Jay Sekulow

Sekulow criticized for allegedly using his nonprofit
organizations’ finances for personal profit. A 2005 Legal Times article
(retrieved via Factiva) reported that an investigation of Sekulow’s finances
revealed “a financial empire that generates millions of dollars a year and
supports a lavish lifestyle” that is “at odds with his role as the
head of a charitable organization that solicits small donations for legal work
in God’s name.” The article reported:

But there is another side to Jay
Sekulow, one that, until now, has been obscured from the public. It is
the Jay Sekulow who, through the ACLJ and a string of
interconnected nonprofit and for-profit entities, has built a financial empire
that generates millions of dollars a year and supports a lavish lifestyle –
complete with multiple homes, chauffeur-driven cars, and a private jet that he
once used to ferry Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

That less-known side of Sekulow was revealed in several interviews with
former associates of his and in hundreds of pages of court and tax documents
reviewed by Legal Times. Critics say Sekulow’s
lifestyle is at odds with his role as the head of a charitable organization
that solicits small donations for legal work in God’s name.

For example, in 2001 one of Sekulow’s
nonprofit organizations paid a total of $2,374,833 to purchase two homes used
primarily by Sekulow and his wife. The same nonprofit also
subsidized a third home he uses in North
Carolina.

At various times in recent years, Sekulow’s wife, brother, sister-in-law, and
two sons have been on the boards or payrolls of organizations under his control
or have received generous payments as contractors. Sekulow’s brother Gary is the chief financial officer of both
nonprofit organizations that fund his activities, a fact that detractors say
diminishes accountability for his spending.

According to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service,
funds from his nonprofits have also been used to lease a private jet from
companies under his family’s control. And two years ago, Sekulow outsourced
his own legal services from the ACLJ, shifting from a position with a publicly
disclosed salary to that of a private contractor that requires no public
disclosure. He acknowledged to Legal Times that his salary from that
arrangement is “above $600,000″ a year.

Sekulow’s financial dealings deeply trouble some of the people who
have worked for him, leading several to speak with Legal Times during the past
six months about their concerns — before Sekulow assumed his high-profile role promoting
President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees.

“Some of us truly believed God told us to serve Jay,”
says one former employee, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
“But not to help him live like Louis XIV. We are coming forward because we
need to believe there is fairness in this world.”

Another says: “Jay sends so many discordant signals. He talks
about doing God’s work for his donors, and then he flies off in his plane to
play golf.”

Still another told Legal Times, “The cause was so good and so
valid, but at some point you can’t sacrifice what is right for the sake of the
cause.”

The
article also details how money solicited for donations to Pat Robertson’s ACLJ
sometimes ended up with Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, a separate
Sekulow organization:

When donors respond to solicitations and write
out checks to the ACLJ, some of the money never makes it into ACLJ coffers but
instead winds up with CASE, Sekulow’s separate entity. Certain solicitations
mention CASE in fine print as an entity “doing business as” the ACLJ.
Sekulow confirms that checks resulting from these mailings are routed to CASE.

The amounts involved are substantial. CASE
reported receiving nearly $14 million in donations for 2003. Its board of
directors has three members: Jay Sekulow; his wife, Pam; and his son Jordan.

Sekulow pushed false claim that the Obama administration
inappropriately subpoenaed a website’s visitor list. Appearing on the
November 10, 2009, edition of Fox News’ Glenn Beck, Sekulow advanced the
falsehood that “the White House” was “intimidating” an “independent news site” by
issuing a subpoena for that website’s visitor list. Sekulow charged that the
administration was “playing very dangerously with media and with the new media
– very, very dangerous.” But the subpoena was issued by a Bush administration appointee on
January 23, 2009 — just days after Obama’s inauguration and prior to Eric
Holder being sworn in as attorney general on February 2. The Obama
administration withdrew the subpoena in February 2009 — months before Sekulow
advanced the falsehood on Fox.

Sekulow donated $1,000 to radical who prayed that abortion doctor
would “either be converted to God or that calamity will strike him.” According to FEC
reports, Sekulow donated $1,000 to Randall Terry for Congress in 1997. In 1992,
Terry appeared in a video that CBS News’ Lesley Stahl said, “shows him asking his followers to ‘pray for either the salvation or the death‘ ” of a Colorado physician. 60 Minutes then aired video of Terry stating, “But pray that this family will
either be converted to God or that calamity will strike him.” Terry has since commented that the murdered abortion doctor George
Tiller “reaped what he sowed.” Terry also reportedly served three months in federal prison
for arranging to have a dead fetus delivered to Bill Clinton at the 1992
Democratic National Convention.

Sekulow supported a
state law denying gay people the possibility of full protection of the law. In 1996, Sekulow filed
an amicus brief on behalf of the ACLJ opposing the overturning of a Colorado
amendment that would have prevented Colorado
municipalities from recognizing gay people as a protected class. The Supreme
Court overturned the amendment, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing that “the amendment imposes a
special disability upon those persons alone. Homosexuals are forbidden the
safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint.”

Sekulow argued that a
“ban on same-sex sodomy … furthers public morality.” Sekulow and the ACLJ
filed an amicus brief opposing overturning American
anti-sodomy laws in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, stating that to
recognize “extramarital sex acts as ‘fundamental rights’ would jeopardize
the wide array of state laws governing even consensual, adult sexual
activity” and that the Constitution “neither does nor ought to
enshrine the Sexual Revolution.” The brief also argued that a “ban on
same-sex sodomy permissibly furthers public morality” and that there are
“extensively documented health risks of same-sex sodomy.”

Sekulow has long history of donating to Republican campaigns. FEC reports show that a
Jay Sekulow and the American
Center of Law and Justice
have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans, including Sen. Saxby
Chambliss, the Georgia Republican Party, Sen. John Thune, John Ashcroft, Mitt
Romney, and George W. Bush.

Karl Rove

Rove viciously smeared Department of Education official as having
advocated for NAMBLA. Rove falsely claimed that Kevin Jennings, a Department of
Education official, had engaged in “high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of
things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school
curricula.” Rove provided no evidence that Jennings ever engaged in any advocacy of NAMBLA, and
Rove’s suggestion that support for “gay rights” is somehow related to
support for NAMBLA is an anti-gay smear.

Rove forwarded absurd claim that Obama administration is pushing
veterans toward assisted suicide. Rove pushed the falsehood that the Veterans Health
Administration was directing veterans to an end-of-life educational booklet,
“Your Life, Your Choices,” that includes contact information for
“a group that believes in assisted suicide,” and thus “the kind
of guidance we’re giving returning veterans” is “you ought to go to
an assisted suicide group.” In fact, that group is not referenced in the
current version of the document, a fact that Jim Towey — who originated the
smear of the booklet as a “death book” — has acknowledged.

Rove helped disclose Plame’s identity as a CIA official. Novak identified
both Rove
and former Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage
as the column, and Time magazine’s Matt Cooper named Rove as the source who identified
Plame as an employee of the CIA during a telephone conversation on July 11,
2003.

Rove leveled attack on Sotomayor based on false claim that she and
Alito were colleagues. Rove claimed that he “got wind of”
allegations that Sonia Sotomayor “was combative, opinionated,
argumentative” while reviewing the record of her “colleague on the
court” Samuel Alito. In fact, Sotomayor served on the 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals; Alito served on the 3rd Circuit.

Rove falsely asserted that Army Field Manual prohibits good
cop-bad cop interrogations. Discussing President Obama’s executive order stating that a
detainee in U.S.
custody cannot be subjected to interrogation techniques not listed in the Army
Field Manual, Rove falsely asserted that “[t]he Army Field Manual …
prohibits you from using good cop-bad cop in interrogating.” In fact, the
Army Field Manual explicitly permits good cop-bad cop interrogations under the
name of “Mutt and Jeff” interrogations, which involve two
interrogators “display[ing] opposing personalities and attitudes toward
the source.”

Rove falsely claimed Obama was not a professor. Claiming that he had a
“list of exaggerations” by Obama, Rove said that Obama claimed, ” ‘I was a law
school professor,’ ” before adding: “No, you were an
instructor.” But Obama was, in fact, a professor at the University of
Chicago Law School.

Rove misrepresented Obama’s comments to accuse him of “arrogance.” Rove wrote, “After Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright
repeated his anti-American slurs at the National Press Club, Mr. Obama said
their relationship was forever changed — but not because of what he’d said
about America. Instead, Mr. Obama complained, ‘I don’t think he showed much
concern for me.’ ” Rove cited this as evidence of Obama’s “arrogance –
even self centeredness.” However, Rove cropped Obama’s quote, excluding his
next statement: “[M]ore importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern
for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for
the American people and with the American people.”

Rove distorted Obama statement to falsely suggest he was
considering “a universal health care system like the European
countries.” Rove wrote that, in 2008, the Obama campaign
“ran ads attacking ‘government-run health care’ as ‘extreme.’ Now Mr.
Obama is asking, as he did at a townhall meeting last month, ‘Why not do a
universal health care system like the European countries?’ Maybe because he was
elected by intimating that would be ‘extreme’?” In fact, in the town hall
remarks Rove quoted, President Obama was paraphrasing the question he had just
been asked — “Why can we not have a universal health care system, like
many European countries, where people are treated based on needs rather than
financial resources?” — before explaining why he opposed such a system.

Rove falsely claimed Obama didn’t warn that economy could get
worse even with stimulus. Rove falsely claimed that “[President] Obama never said
if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse.”
In fact, in a January 8, 2009, speech about his economic recovery plan, Obama
stated, “It will not come easy or happen overnight, and it is altogether
likely that things may get worse before they get better.”

Rove blatantly misrepresented Obama’s comments about tea party
participants. Rove claimed that President Obama
“dismisses” tea party participants “as an extremist ‘strain
[that] has existed in politics for a long time.’ ” In fact, in the
interview Rove quoted, Obama explicitly said that tea party participants are
not “on the fringe” and that the movement includes people with
“legitimate concerns.”

As a campaign consultant, Rove reportedly used whisper campaigns
against opponents, including the allegation that a Democratic incumbent judge
was a pedophile. In a November 2004 article in The Atlantic, Joshua Green reported:

Some of Rove’s darker tactics cut even closer to
the bone. One constant throughout his career is the prevalence of whisper
campaigns against opponents. The 2000 primary campaign, for example, featured a
widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in
Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered
mentally unfit for office. More often a Rove campaign questions an opponent’s
sexual orientation. Bush’s 1994 race against Ann Richards featured a rumor that
she was a lesbian, along with a rare instance of such a tactic’s making it into
the public record — when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed
himself, perhaps inadvertently, to be quoted criticizing Richards for
“appointing avowed homosexual activists” to state jobs.

Another example of Rove’s methods involves a
former ally of Rove’s from Texas,
John Weaver, who, coincidentally, managed McCain’s bid in 2000. Many Republican
operatives in Texas tell the story of another
close race of sorts: a competition in the 1980s to become the dominant
Republican consultant in Texas.
In 1986 Weaver and Rove both worked on Bill Clements’s successful campaign for
governor, after which Weaver was named executive director of the state
Republican Party. Both were emerging as leading consultants, but Weaver’s star
seemed to be rising faster. The details vary slightly according to which
insider tells the story, but the main point is always the same: after Weaver
went into business for himself and lured away one of Rove’s top employees, Rove
spread a rumor that Weaver had made a pass at a young man at a state Republican
function. Weaver won’t reply to the smear, but those close to him told me of
their outrage at the nearly two-decades-old lie. Weaver was first made
unwelcome in some Texas Republican circles, and eventually, following McCain’s
2000 campaign, he left the Republican Party altogether. He has continued an
active and successful career as a political consultant — in Texas
and Alabama,
among other states — and is currently working for McCain as a Democrat.

But no other example of Rove’s extreme tactics
that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial
campaign in Alabama.
In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove
client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent
Democratic justice and, as George Wallace’s son-in-law, a member in good
standing of Alabama’s
first family of politics, was no stranger to hardball politics. “The
Wallace family history and what they all went through, that’s pretty rough
politics,” says Joe Perkins, who managed Kennedy’s campaign. “But it
was a whole new dimension with Rove.”

This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his
office in Montgomery.
I had hoped to discuss how it was that he had beaten one of the savviest
political strategists in modern history, and I expected to hear more of the
raucous campaign tales that are a staple of Alabama politics. Neither Kennedy nor our
meeting was anything like what I had anticipated. A small man, impeccably
dressed and well-mannered, Kennedy appeared to derive little satisfaction from
having beaten Rove. In fact, he seemed shaken, even ten years later. He quietly
explained how Rove’s arrival had poisoned the judicial climate by putting
politics above matters of law and justice — “collateral damage,” he
called it, from the win-at-all-costs attitude that now prevails in judicial
races.

He talked about the viciousness of the
“slash-and-burn” campaign, and how Rove appealed to the worst
elements of human nature. “People vote in Alabama for two reasons,” Kennedy told
me. “Anger and fear. It’s a state that votes against somebody rather than
for them. Rove understood how to put his finger right on the trigger
point.” Kennedy seemed most bothered by the personal nature of the
attacks, which, in addition to the usual anti-trial-lawyer litany, had included
charges that he was mingling campaign funds with those of a nonprofit
children’s foundation he was involved with. In the end he eked out a victory by
less than one percentage point.

Kennedy leaned forward and said, “After the
race my wife, Peggy, was at the supermarket checkout line. She picked up a copy
of Reader’s Digest and nearly collapsed on her watermelon. She called me and
said, ‘Sit down. You’re not going to believe this.’” Her husband was
featured in an article on “America’s
worst judges.” Kennedy attributed this to Rove’s attacks.

When his term on the court ended, he chose not
to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent
years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he
had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children. In the early 1980s
he had helped to start the Children’s Trust Fund of Alabama, and he later
established the Corporate Foundation for Children, a private, nonprofit
organization. At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of
the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove’s
signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems
unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.

Some of Kennedy’s campaign commercials touted
his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children.
“We were trying to counter the positives from that ad,” a former Rove
staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper
campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. “It was our standard practice to
use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign
information,” the staffer went on. “That was a major device we used
for the transmission of this stuff. The students at the law school are from all
over the state, and that’s one of the ways that Karl got the information out –
he knew the law students would take it back to their home towns and it would
get out.” This would create the impression that the lie was in fact common
knowledge across the state. “What Rove does,” says Joe Perkins,
“is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not
subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin’,
tobacco-chewin’, pickup-drivin’ kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed,
well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a
homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take.”

Dick Morris

Morris: “Those
crazies in Montana
who say, ‘We’re going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’
– well, they’re beginning to have a case.” Appearing on the March
31, 2009, edition of Fox News’ Your World, Morris concocted a conspiracy
theory about a “super-national authority” that will oversee U.S.
financial institutions and asserted that because President Obama’s policies
are “internationalist … [t]hose crazies in Montana who say, ‘We’re going
to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’ — well, they’re
beginning to have a case.”

Morris fabricated and
then retracted the allegation that former Attorney General Reno threatened Clinton that she would “tell the truth about Waco.” During an appearance on
the April 20 edition of Hannity, Morris claimed that then-Attorney
General Janet Reno threatened President Clinton
in early 1997 by saying that if he didn’t re-appoint her as attorney general,
she was “going to tell truth about Waco.”
After host Sean Hannity said, “I don’t remember you telling this story
before,” Morris replied, “No, it’s never been said before.”
Morris went on to say: “I know that he told me — Clinton
told me — that I couldn’t not appoint Reno
because she would have turned on me over Waco.
That’s the phrase he used.” Morris’ claim contradicted the version of
events he told in his 2004 book. Morris subsequently retracted the version of the story he told on Hannity.

Morris promoted the
“death panels” “lie of the year.” Morris has repeatedly forwarded the “lie of the year” that health care reform legislation
contains
a “death panel”
or promotes
“euthanasia.”

Morris
claimed Obama is “anti-American.” Morris appeared on the
April 13 edition of Fox & Friends and said that Obama’s nuclear policy
“might” make him “the first anti-American president we’ve ever
had.” Morris has also stated that Obama ‘s foreign policy “can
only be described as anti-American.”

Morris regularly
fundraises for GOP and has rallied for Toomey. Dick Morris frequently
engages in ethically dubious behavior and unabashed advocacy
for GOP candidates and causes. In his Newsmax column,
Morris predicted that Toomey will be “[t]he new senator from Pennsylvania.” Morris regularly endorses and
fundraises for Republican candidates and was scheduled
to appear at an April event for the Cumberland County Republican Committee
(PA), a February
event
for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, and a December 2009 fundraiser
for Tom Corbett for Governor (PA).  

Morris
repeatedly used his Fox News platform to fundraise for GOPTrust.com without
noting his apparent financial ties to the organization. Between October 27,
2008, and November 17, 2008, Morris mentioned GOPTrust.com during at least 13 Fox News
appearances and asked viewers to “give funds to GOPTrust.com,” the
website of the National Republican Trust PAC, without
disclosing that the organization has paid $24,000 to a company apparently
connected to Morris. Through publicly available records with the Federal
Election Commission (FEC), Media Matters
for America found that GOPTrust.com paid Triangulation
Strategies at least $24,000 from the beginning of October 2008 to November 24,
2008, mostly for “Email Communication.” The “Mailing
Address” for Triangulation Strategies is listed in one of the National Republican Trust
PAC’s FEC filings as “dickmorris.com.”

Andrew Napolitano

Napolitano hosts Jones
and Ventura as
they push 9-11 trutherism and other conspiracy theories. Napolitano has used his
FoxNews.com show to praise and promote two of the most visible
leaders of the 9-11 Truth movement, Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura. Napolitano indicates in his book Lies the Government Told You that he does not believe the government
carried out the 9-11 attacks.

• On a March edition of Freedom Watch, Napolitano called
  guest Ventura a “champion of exposing government fraud and
  lies,” and promoted Ventura’s belief that the government either
  “participate[d]” in 9-11 or “knew it was going to happen
  and didn’t do very much to stop it.” Napolitano said Ventura is a
  “champion of exposing government fraud and lies” and
  “uncover[s]” the government with “passion and zeal.”
  At no point did Napolitano dispute or challenge Ventura’s 9-11 conspiracy theory
  “that if we didn’t participate in it, we certainly knew it was going
  to happen.” To the contrary, Napolitano wondered if “someday we
  will look on 9-11 the way we look on the JFK assassination today, that is,
  where people who question the government’s involvement will be
  mainstreamed, rather than looked upon as an extremist fringe.”

• Napolitano has hosted “the great” Jones to push
  anti-government conspiracy theories about one-world government and his DVD The
  Obama Deception, which describes Obama as a “hoax” by
  the New World Order to impose “forced National Service, domestic civilian
  spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA
  camps and Martial Law.” Napolitano is a regular guest on Jones’ radio
  program, on which the two frequently push anti-government conspiracy theories
  and rhetoric. Napolitano has called the self-described 9-11 Truth
  “founding father” a “dear friend” who “we go to”
  because of “your zeal and your courage and your fearlessness in
  exposing” the government. During one appearance on Jones’ radio program,
  Jones and Napolitano both agree that there is a “one world government”
  that is forcing its will on Americans.

Napolitano fabricated
conspiracy that Obama was using health care reform to create an army of
doctors.
During the health care reform debate, Napolitano fabricated and promoted the conspiracy theory that President Obama was
creating “a civilian corps just as powerful, just as well funded as the
military” through the Ready Reserve Corps. He later joined Fox Business’
Charles Gasparino in likening the provision — which would supplement a
200-year-old public health corps with a reserve corps — to “bringing back
the draft.”

Napolitano called
Palin’s “death panel” claim “a legitimate concern from a fair reading of the
bill.” On
his Fox News Radio show, Napolitano said that Sarah Palin’s “death panels” claim
about the health care reform bill — named by Politifact as the 2009 Lie of the Year
– constituted “a legitimate concern from a fair reading of this bill.”

Napolitano advanced the
falsehood that Rep. Matheson was bribed to support health care reform with a
judicial nomination for his brother. After the house voted on the health care reform
bill, Napolitano advanced the smear that Obama bribed Rep. Jim
Matheson (D-UT) to vote in favor of health care reform by appointing his
brother to the appeals court and falsely claimed that after Obama’s actions,
Matheson “changed his vote to yes.” In
fact, Rep. Matheson again voted “No” on health care reform, and
allegations of a deal between Matheson and the White House are completely
baseless.

Napolitano promoted
media falsehood that Valerie Plame’s CIA status was widely known before Novak’s
disclosure. On the October 31, 2005, edition of Bill O’Reilly’s now-defunct
radio show, Napolitano claimed
that “at least one” of his Fox News colleagues had alleged to have been present
at a party where former Ambassador Joe Wilson IV introduced Plame as “my CIA operative
wife.” Napolitano used his anonymously sourced claim to question whether Plame
“was, in fact, undercover” when her identity was disclosed by Novak. Napolitano
did not explain why his source did not publicly repeat the story. Fitzgerald made clear that Plame’s identity “was not widely
known outside the intelligence community,” including by Plame’s “friends,
neighbors, [and] college classmates.”

Napolitano said a
victory by Republican Pat Toomey — Sestak’s opponent in the Pennsylvania Senate race — win would be
“a very sweet victory.” On his Fox News Radio show, Napolitano
interviewed Toomey, Sestak’s Republican opponent for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats, and stated: “A lot of us want you to win. I’m being
very open with this.” He continued: “Hope that you run against Arlen Specter
and beat him. It would be a very sweet victory.” Napolitano has promoted other
Republican causes as well; for example, he has promoted an anti-health care reform rally hosted
by Michelle Bachman, commenting that she “wants your help in the fight” and
appeared at a February fundraiser for the Acadiana Republican Women (LA) as well
as an August 2009 fundraiser for Rep. Ron Paul (TX).

Legal experts dispute claims that a crime was
committed

Bush ethics lawyer calls claim that a job offer is a bribe
“difficult to support.” In a post on
the Legal Ethics Forum blog, former Bush administration chief ethics lawyer
Richard Painter wrote: “The allegation that the job offer was somehow a
‘bribe’ in return for Sestak not running in the primary is difficult to
support.” Painter also subsequent blog post replying to Issa’s call for a special
prosecutor to be appointed to investigate possible criminal charges, Painter article:

“People offer members of Congress things
all the time,” Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and now the
executive director of the liberal government watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told CNSNews.com. “I don’t
think there is any issue. I don’t see the crime.”

[...]

If it is true, such a trade would be an
indictment of the system, Sloan of CREW said, but not likely illegal.

“A quid pro quo has to offer something of
value in exchange for something,” Sloan said. “If you agree not to
run for the Senate and we’ll make you secretary of the Navy — that offers no
monetary value. It’s just the unseemly side of politics.”

Sloan: “There is no bribery case here.” Talking Points Memo’s Zachary Roth reported in
a May 25 post that “several experts tell TPMmuckraker this is much ado
about nothing” and quoted Sloan saying, “There is no bribery case
here. … No statute has ever been used to prosecute anybody for bribery in
circumstances like this.” Sloan also said: “It’s not at all about
whether there was actual criminal wrongdoing. … It’s about how to go after
Sestak.”

Zeidenberg: “Horrible precedent” to treat
“horsetrading” “in the criminal context.” Roth also quoted Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor
with the Justice Department’s Public Integrity unit, saying “Talk about
criminalizing the political process!… It would be horrible precedent if what
really truly is political horsetrading were viewed in the criminal context of:
is this a corrupt bribe?”

Kaufman: “Tell me a White House that didn’t do this,
back to George Washington.” The New York Times article (from
the Nexis database) reported that President Reagan’s political adviser Ed
Rollins planned to offer former California Sen. S.I. Hayakawa a job in the
administration in exchange for not seeking re-election.

From the AP article:

Sen. S.I. Hayakawa on Wednesday spurned a Reagan
administration suggestion that if he drops out of the crowded Republican Senate
primary race in California,
President Reagan would find him a job.

“I’m not interested,” said the
75-year-old Hayakawa.

“I do not want to be an ambassador, and I
do not want an administration post.”

[...]

In an interview earlier this week, Ed Rollins,
who will become the president’s chief political adviser in January, said
Hayakawa would be offered an administration post if he decided not to seek
re-election. No offer has been made directly to Hayakawa, Rollins said.

Similarly, Hayakawa said in a statement, “I
have not contacted the White House in regard to any administration or
ambassadorial post, and they have not been in contact with me.”

AP: “Ethics attorneys in Washington said such offers are
common.” A February 19 AP article reported: “Ethics attorneys in Washington said such
offers are common. Melanie Sloan, director of the watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,
described it as ‘politics as usual.’ ”

Wash. Post: “This would
hardly be the first administration” to offer a job to “clear the
field.” A May 25 Washington
Post editorial critical
of the Obama administration’s response stated: “At the same time, of
course, political considerations play a role in political appointments. This
would hardly be the first administration to use appointments to try to clear
the field for a favored candidate.”

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Officials are concerned that the laboratories that will examine the effects of the spill count oil firms, including BP, among their largest clients.

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In recent years, at least twenty Fox News personalities have endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or causes, or against Democratic candidates or causes, in more than 300 instances and in at least 49 states. Republican parties and officials have routinely touted these personalities’ affiliations with Fox News to sell and promote their events.

Fred Barnes

Fred Barnes
is a Fox News contributor and former host of The
Beltway Boys. He has spoken at the following Republican
fundraisers:

• October
  2009 fundraiser
  for Aaron Schock for Congress (IL).
  In an October 2, 2009, press release (retrieved from
  Nexis) promoting the event, the Illinois Republican Party noted
  Barnes’ Fox News affiliation in the first line, writing: “FOX
  News contributor Fred Barnes will headline fundraising campaign kickoff
  events for Congressman Aaron Schock on October 12th with a luncheon
  event
  in Springfield and a dinner in Peoria.” When reportedly asked if it’s
  appropriate “for a journalist to appear at a candidate’s
  fundraiser,” Barnes replied:
  “I don’t know
  … I hadn’t really given it much thought.
  I’m just going to … talk about my view of the political
  landscape.”
• March
  2008 fundraiser
  for the newsletter,
  writing: “Republican Party of Palm Beach County Lincoln Day
  Dinner-Fred Barnes, Keynote Speaker Executive Editor of The Weekly
  Standard; Co-host of FNC’s Beltway Boys.”

Glenn
Beck

During the October 14,
2009, Eric
Bolling is the co-host of Fox Business’ Happy Hour and a frequent guest host on the Fox News
Channel. He regularly uses his Fox Business program to endorse
Republicans:

• Beck-Palin ticket for president. On Happy Hour,
  Bolling has repeatedly pushed a
  2012 presidential ticket consisting of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
  Bolling
  has stated of
  his preferred
  ticket: “You think I’m kidding. I’m not kidding.”
• “2012,
  put a Republican
  in there.” On the
  March 17 edition of Happy Hour,
  Bolling responded to a viewer question about how to “save” the
  country by stating:
  “2012, put a Republican in there. Turn it over in 2010.”
• 2009
  endorsements. Bolling endorsed
  Conservative Party congressional
  candidate Doug Hoffman (NY), gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie
  (R-NJ)
  and Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I-NY) on the November 2 edition (retrieved
  from
  Nexis) of Happy Hour,
  stating: “How about ‘Street Meat’ [the title of one of
  Bolling's segments]? ‘Street Meat’ endorsing Mr. Doug
  Hoffman, Mr. Christie and also Mr. Mayor Bloomberg — the ‘Street
  Meat’ endorsements.” On election night, Bolling celebrated
  Christie and Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R-VA) victories. 

John Bolton

John Bolton is a March
fundraiser
for Patrick Murray for Congress (VA).

February fundraiser
for fundraiser
for resides
in West Hollywood, CA. A donor named Tammy Bruce identified as a
writer/broadcaster and listing West Hollywood
addresses regularly donates to Republicans, according to
Federal
Election Commission (FEC) records. For instance:

• September 2009 $500
  donation to Joe Wilson for Congress (SC)
• $3,500 in
  total
  donations
  to
  Allen West for Congress (FL)
• $1,250 in total
  donations
  to Sarah PAC
• September 2008 $1,000
  donation to John McCain 2008
• September 2008 $1,000
  donation to McCain-Palin compliance fund
• August 2008 $1,000
  donation to McCain Victory California
• June 2008 $500
  donation to Jason Chaffetz for Congress (UT)
• April 2008 $1,000
  donation to David Dreier for Congress (CA)
• February 2008 $500
  donation to Mitt Romney for President

Neil Cavuto

Bush
donor. The Washington Post noted
that Your World host and
Fox
Business Vice President Neil Cavuto “gave $1,000
to a fundraising dinner for President Bush in 2002.” A 2004 Washington
Post article
reported, “‘I wish he hadn’t,’ said Fox News
Vice President John Moody, who responded by circulating a policy Friday
that
discourages such contributions. ‘I hope our people will follow the
advice
I’ve given to them voluntarily. The potential perception is that they
favor one
candidate over the other.’ But he said he wouldn’t ban the
practice.”

Monica Crowley

scheduled
to be the master of ceremonies for Iraq Veterans For Congress PAC’s June
fundraising dinner. Crowley’s
Fox News affiliation
is touted in the invitation to the dinner. The event describes itself as
a
“fundraising dinner to support our platoon of conservative Republican
veterans running for Congress in 2010. … Sponsorships include
entrance to the VIP cocktail hour and photo-op with speakers, master of
ceremonies and IVC candidates.”

Newt Gingrich

regularly
appears at Republican fundraisers and gatherings. For instance:

• Scheduled May fundraiser
  for the Polk County Republican Party (IA).
• Scheduled April fundraiser
  for Tim Burns for Congress (PA)
• speech
  at the
  Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
• April
  fundraiser
  February event
  for Sen. Bob Bennett (UT). Gingrich also
  made an ad for Bennett.
• fundraiser
  for the Georgia Republican Party.  
• December 2009 fundraiser
  for Ethan Hastert for Congress (IL). Fox News covered
  Gingrich’s appearance.
• July
  2009 fundraiser
  for the New Jersey Republican Party.
• June 2009 fundraiser
  for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the
  National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The Associated Press fundraiser
  2009
  fundraiser
  for the Broward County Republican Party (FL).
• April
  2009 June
  2008
  fundraiser
  for Dave Reichert for Congress (WA).
• October
  2005 speech
  for University
  of Vermont College Republicans.
• June 2005
  fundraiser
  for the Delaware
  Republican Party.

Campaigning/advising:

• In February, Colorado
  State Treasurer candidate Ali
  Hasan announced
  Gingrich as a campaign adviser.
• Before
  the 2009 mid-term election, Gingrich wrote on his Twitter: “If you
  know anyone who lives in new
  jersey make sure they vote for christie
  tomorrow.” Gingrich followed up
  by writing on November 3:  “If you are in virginia
  new jersey new york
  23 or the california
  special election remember to vote today Remind your friends in those
  four.”

American Solutions
527 and PAC. Gingrich is
chairman
of 527 organization American Solutions for Winning the Future. Based
on the
group’s filings with the IRS, OpenSecrets.org found that the American
Solutions 527 has raised $14,494,782 in the 2010 election cycle. On AmericanSolutions.com,
Gingrich writes that the group is a “unique tri-partisan organization
designed to rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship, to provide
real,
significant solutions to the most important issues facing our country.”
Gingrich also reportedly
“recently started a PAC called American Solutions, but it was only
functioning for a few days last year.” According to FEC filings,
American Solutions PAC donated at least $1,000 to Scott Brown for Senate
(MA). In
December,
Fox News devoted substantial coverage to Gingrich’s “American
Solutions
Real Jobs Summit.”

Sean Hannity

Fox News host Sean Hannity
regularly
appears at fundraisers for Republicans and has donated to Republicans in
the
past:

• Scheduled April fundraiser
  for John Kasich for Governor (OH); the fundraising
  appearance was reportedly cancelled.
• March fundraiser
  for the NRCC, which reportedly raised
  $7 million.
• October
  2009 fundraiser
  for Kasich.
• In 2007, Hannity fundraised
  for Rudy Giuliani (NY).
• In 2005, a
  donor named Sean Hannity listing a Suffolk
  County (New York) address donated
  a total
  of
  $2,100 to Jeanine Pirro for Senate (NY). Hannity promised to give Pirro the
  maximum
  contribution and asked his
  radio listeners to donate as well.

On his syndicated radio
program in
November 2009, Hannity
told New Jersey
listeners to “get to the polls” and “stop Obama-care in its tracks.” 

Mike Huckabee

Fox News host Mike
Huckabee
frequently endorses candidates through his political action committee,
Huck
PAC. The PAC states:
“Huck PAC proudly remains committed to helping Republicans regain
control
of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and a majority of governorships.” Huck
PAC
has raised
at least $1 million for the
2009-2010
cycle.  

In 2009, Huckabee repeatedly
used Fox News to fundraise for his PAC on-air. On December 21, 2009,
Washington Post media
critic Howard Kurtz reported
that “Fox executives told Huckabee to stop plugging [his] Web site on
the
air after learning that it linked to his political action committee,
which the
network deemed a conflict of interest.”

According to a January 30 press
release, Huck PAC supported the following candidates in 2009:

Bob
McDonnell for Governor (Virginia)

Bill Bolling
for Lt. Governor (Virginia)

Ken
Cuccinelli for Attorney General (Virginia)

Marco Rubio
for Senate (Florida)

Mike
Haridopolos for State Senate (Florida)

David Rivera
for State Representative (Florida)

Duncan
Hunter for Congress (California)

David Harmer
for Congress (California)

John Hoeven
for Senate (North Dakota)

Trent Franks
for Congress (Arizona)

Dick Kelsey
for Congress (Kansas)

Tim
Huelskamp for Congress (Kansas)

Cary
McKay for Judge (Texas)

Weston Martinez for San Antonio
City Council (Texas)

John Parke
for State Representative (Arkansas)

Rick
Crawford for Congress (Arkansas)

Matthew
Shepard for State Representative (Arkansas)

Sam Graves
for Congress (Missouri)

Bob Vander
Plaats for Governor (Iowa)

Chuck
Grassley for Senate (Iowa)

Bill Northey
for Agriculture Secretary (Iowa)

Mike Pence
for Congress (Indiana)

John Kasich for
Governor (Ohio)

Alan
Nunnelee for Congress (Mississippi)

Les Phillip
for Congress (Alabama)

John Linder
for Congress (Georgia)

Andre Bauer
for Governor (South Carolina)

Rex Rice for
Congress (South Carolina)

Steve Moss
for State House (South Carolina)

Jim Tedisco
for Congress (New York)

The FEC lists Huck PAC as
donating
to the following candidates during the 2009-2010
cycle (the FEC’s list is updated through the fourth quarter of 2009):

• Eric Alan Rick Crawford
  for Congress (AR) [$1,000]
• Trent Franks for Congress
  (AZ) [$1,000]
• David Harmer for Congress
  (CA) [$1,000]
• Timothy Huelskamp for
  Congress (KS) [$2,000]
• Richard Kelsey for Congress
  (KS) [$2,000]
• John Linder for Congress
  (GA) [$1,000]
• Patrick Alan Nunnelee for
  Congress (MS) [$1,000]
• Les Phillip for Congress
  (AL) [$1,000]
• Rex Rice for Congress (SC)
  [$2,000]
• Marco Rubio for Senate (FL)
  [$4,500]
• James Tedisco for Congress
  (NY) [$2,500]

Huckabee also made an
independent
expenditure on behalf of James Tedisco of New York (“phone
solicitation”)
in the amount
of $1,155.

Huck PAC’s 2010 first
quarter FEC
report lists additional contributions to:

• Chuck Fleischmann for
  Congress (TN) [$2,000]
• Eric Alan Rick Crawford for
  Congress (AR) [$1,000]
• John Hoeven for Senate (ND)
  [$2,000]
• Marco Rubio for Senate (FL)
  [$500]
• Doug Matayo for Congress (AR)
  [$2,000]
• Patrick Alan Nunnelee for
  Congress (MS) [$2,000]
• Pat Meehan for Congress
  (PA) [$2,000]
• Rex Rice for Congress (SC)
  [$2,000]
• Andre Bauer for Governor
  (SC) [$1,000]
• Sam Teasley for State House
  (GA) [$500]
• Holly Turner for State
  House (TX) [$500]
• John Parke for State House
  (AR) [$500]
• Mike Cox for Governor (MI)
  [$2,000]
• Scott Pruitt for Attorney
  General (OK) [$2,000]
• Bob Vander Plaats for
  Governor (IA) [$1,000]
• Wes Enos for State Senate
  (IA) [$500]

The FEC lists Huck PAC as
donating
to the following candidates during the 2007-2008
cycle after the announcement of Huckabee’s
signing with Fox News on June 12, 2008:

• Lamar Alexander for Senate
  (TN) [$1,000]
• Steve Chabot for Congress
  (OH) [$1,000]
• Bob Clegg for Congress (NH)
  [$2,300]
• John Culberson for Congress
  (TX) [$1,000]
• Elizabeth Dole for Senate
  (NC) [$1,000]
• Trent Franks for Congress
  (AZ) [$1,000]
• Richard Goddard for
  Congress (GA) [$1,000]
• Samuel Graves for Congress
  (MO) [$1,000]
• Duncan D. Hunter for
  Congress (CA) [$1,000 and worth
  $5,000, and donated
  $2,300 to the Republican Party of Arkansas

  As of April 20, Huckabee
  has
  released statements in support of the following candidates in 2010:

  • Wes
    Enos for State Senate (IA)
  • Mark
    Darr for Lieutenant Governor (AR). A Darr press
    release announcing Huckabee's support mentions his Fox News
    affiliation.
  • Beth
    Anne Rankin for Congress (AR)
  • Scott
    Wallace for Congress (AR)
  • Sam
    Teasley for State House (GA)
  • Chuck
    Fleischmann for Congress (TN)
  • Doug
    Matayo for Congress (AR)
  • Pat
    Meehan for Congress (PA)
  • Holly
    Turner State House (TX)
  • Mike
    Cox for Governor (MI). A Cox press
    release announcing Huckabee's support mentions his Fox News
    affiliation.
  • Cary
    McKay for County
    Judge (TX)

  After the announcement
  of his signing with Fox News on June 12, 2008, Huckabee endorsed numerous
  candidates
  in 2008 including:

  • Don
    Young for Congress (AK)
  • Roy
    Brown for Governor (MT)
  • Steve
    Daines for Lieutenant Governor (MT)

  Fundraising/GOP
  appearances and support:

  • Scheduled April campaign
    appearance for Chuck Fleischmann for Congress (TN). A Fleischmann press
    release notes Huckabee's Fox News affiliation. 
  • fundraiser
    for Dick Kelsey for Congress (IA).
  • February
    fundraiser
    for Alan Nunnelee for Congress (MS).
  • February
    fundraiser
    fundraiser
    for Cary McKay for County Judge (TX).
  • December 2009 letter
    for Lt. Gov Andre Bauer (SC). A Bauer press
    release
    touts Huckabee's Fox News affiliation.
  • September 2009 fundraiser
    July
    2009 fundraiser
    for Huck PAC in Oklahoma City, featuring Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK) and Governor and Mrs. Frank
    Keating (OK).

  David Hunt

  

  Fox News contributor David
  Hunt appeared at several April fundraisers
  for Jim Lee for Congress (SC); Lee is challenging Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC)
  in the
  press
  release touts Hunt's Fox News affiliation,
  writing: "Jim Lee is seeking to unseat six term incumbent, Congressman
  Bob Inglis in the upcoming congressional race in the Upstate of South
  Carolina
  and is getting some help from Fox News war and terrorism expert, Colonel
  David
  Hunt." Jim Lee for Congress' website listed Hunt participating in the following events:

  

  Michelle Malkin

  

  Michelle Malkin is a Fox
  News
  contributor who has appeared at Republican fundraisers:

  • fundraiser
    for Kris Kobach for Secretary of State (KS)
  • fundraiser
    for the Collin County GOP (TX). A Collin County GOP press
    release mentions Malkin's Fox News affiliation.
  • February 2009 scheduled fundraiser
    for the Palm Beach County GOP (FL). The event was reportedly canceled -- the Palm Beach Post KT
    McFarland is a Fox News national security
    analyst and host of FoxNews.com's DefCon
    3.
    McFarland was a listed featured guest for a fundraiser
    for the Santa Fe County
    (NM)
    Republican Party, which touted her Fox News affiliation:

    

    Dick Morris

    

    Dick Morris is a Fox News
    contributor who regularly endorses and fundraises for Republican
    candidates;
    Morris has also used his Fox News employment to urge viewers to
    contribute to or
    help campaigns that advocate on behalf of Republican causes or against
    Democratic candidates or causes.

    Pro-Republican
    causes.
    Morris is the
    chief strategist and ad crafter for the conservative group League of
    American Voters,
    which opposed the Democrats' health care reform proposals. In a February
    23 blog
    post, Morris listed
    31 "Vulnerable Democratic Congressmen" who are "swing
    congressmen on health care" and wrote that the "League of American
    voters has produced ads targeting these swing Congressmen and we urge
    you
    STRONGLY to CLICK HERE
    to send them money to help fund these ads." Morris promoted his
    list and website in numerous instances on Fox.

    The following is the LAV
    list that
    Morris posted on February 23 (Media Matters
    has obscured the full phone
    numbers of the members):

    Arizona:

    Harry Mitchell
    (Phoenix
    suburbs) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Gabrielle Giffords (Tucson) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Ann Kirkpatrick (most of rural Arizona, NE part of state) Call
    (202) 225-XXXX!

    California:

    Jerry
    McNerney (Stockton and Pleasanton) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Colorado:

    John Salazar
    (Pueblo) Call
    202-225-XXXX!

    Connecticut:

    Jim Hines (Fairfield County) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Florida:

    Alan Grayson
    (Orlando) Call
    (202) 225-XXXX!

    Illinois:

    Bill Foster
    (Dixon, Batavia,
    and Geneseo) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Indiana:

    Baron Hill
    (from Kentucky border up to Bloomington) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Michigan:

    Mark Schauer
    (Branch, Calhoun, Eaton, Hillsdale, Jackson, Lenawee & Washtenaw
    counties)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Gary Peters (Oakland County)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Nevada:

    Dina Titus (Las Vegas) Call (202)
    225-XXXX!

    New Hampshire:

    Carol
    Shea-Porter (Portsmouth, Manchester, Lakes Region) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    New York:

    Tim Bishop (Suffolk County) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    John Hall (Northern Westchester)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Bill Owens (Plattsburgh
    up along Vermont border to Canada) Call
    (202) 225-XXXX!
    Mike Arcuri (Utica
    and south central NY) Call (202)225-XXXX!
    Dan Maffei (Syracuse)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    North Dakota:

    Earl
    Pomneroy (at large) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Ohio:

    Steven
    Driehaus (Cincinnati west to Indiana border) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Mary Jo Kilroy (Columbus
    and west to Indiana
    border) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Zach Space (Dover, Zanesville, Chillicothe)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Pennsylvania:

    Kathy
    Dahlkemper (Erie)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Patrick Murphy (Bucks County)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Christopher Carney (NE Penn) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Paul Kanjorski (Scranton,
    Wilkes-Barre)
    Call 202-225-XXXX!

    South Carolina:

    John Spratt
    (rural SC between Columbia and Charlotte) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Virginia:

    Tom
    Perriello (Charlottesville, Bedford,
    Timberlake, Martinsville & Danville) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    West Virginia:

    Alan
    Mollohan (Wheeling, Morgantown) Call (202) 225-XXXX!
    Nick Rahall (Huntington) Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    Wisconsin:

    Steve Kagen
    (Green Bay)
    Call (202) 225-XXXX!

    In a September 2009 post,
    Morris
    also asked
    readers to pressure senators in several "key swing states,"
    including South Dakota,
    to vote against "Obamacare."

    In a November 24, 2009, post,
    Morris wrote that "with the funds you have donated, we ran television
    advertisments and an Internet campaign aimed at young people focused in
    Arkansas, North Dakota
    and Maine.
    The results are incredible! Now under-30 voters are the strongest
    opponents of
    the plan." On November 19, Morris wrote:
    "The League has run ads in Indiana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Louisiana,
    North Carolina,
    Virginia, Maine,
    Montana, Colorado,
    Florida and Connecticut to push swing senators to oppose
    the bill."

    As Media
    Matters documented,
    Morris also repeatedly used Fox News appearances to promote and raise
    money for
    the National Republican Trust PAC without disclosing that the
    organization paid
    $24,000 to a company apparently connected to Morris, according to FEC
    filings.
    Morris helped the PAC by promoting the group's efforts to help Sen.
    Saxby Chambliss (GA) and to run ads about Jeremiah Wright and
    then-candidate
    Obama in "Key Swing States."

    Fundraising/GOP
    appearances:

    • Scheduled June fundraiser
      for the
      Alabama Republican Party. A press
      release for the
      event touts Morris' Fox News affiliation; the headline reads:
      "Fox News Contributor and Political Consultant Dick Morris to
      Headline ALGOP's 2010 Reagan Dinner." The press release text
      states: "The Alabama Republican Party announces today that Fox News
      commentator Dick Morris will be the featured speaker for the 2010 Reagan
      Dinner."
    • Scheduled April event
      for the Cumberland County Republican
      Committee (PA).
      The committee touts Morris' Fox News affiliation on its website:

    

    • March fundraiser
      fundraiser
      event for
      the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.
    • December 2009 fundraiser
      for Tom Corbett for Governor (PA)
    • November 2009 newsletter
      noted Morris' affiliation with Fox News.  
    • fundraiser
      for the Republican Women of Williamson County (TN). A flier
      for the event touts Morris' affiliation with Fox.
    • fundraiser
      for Robert Lowry for Congress (FL)
    • April
      2009 video
      for the
      fundraiser
      prominently featured Morris' Fox News affiliation:

    

    • December
      2008 fundraiser
      for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania GOP noted Morris' Fox News
      affiliation, writing: "Republican Party of Pennsylvania Chairman Rob
      Gleason is pleased to announce that famed-political consultant and Fox
      News contributor Dick Morris will be the keynote speaker at our
      Party's annual Commonwealth Club Luncheon."
    • fundraiser
      for Mark Zaccaria for Congress (RI). Zaccaria used Morris' Fox News affiliation in a The
      Boston Globe, Morris served as a consultant for Christy
      Mihos for
      Governor (MA); the campaign reportedly "brought Morris to Massachusetts
      for events and featured his involvement prominently on its website." The Globe
      reported that Mihos "paid Morris $20,000 a month for four
      months last year [2009], state campaign finance records show.” On March
      15 on Fox Business, Morris endorsed Rand
      Paul for U.S. Senate
      (KY).
      On March 29, during Hannity,
      Morris endorsed and campaigned for Edward Lynch for Congress (FL). On
      his
      website, Stephen Broden for Congress (TX) lists an endorsement
      from “Dick Morris, National Political Strategist, Fox News Contributor
      and author.” Morris has donated $1,000
      to Edward Lynch for Congress (FL) and edition of
      his Fox News Radio program, Napolitano told Senate candidate Pat Toomey
      (R-PA) that he wants him “to win,” and added that if Toomey
      did it would
      be
      “a very sweet victory.”
    • February fundraiser
      for
      the Acadiana Republican Women
      (LA). A flier
      for the event touted Napolitano’s Fox News affiliation:

    

    • August 2009 fundraiser
      since
      2001.

      Fundraising/GOP
      appearances:

      • October 2008 fundraising dinner
        for the Fulton County (Georgia)
        Republican
        Party. North’s Fox News affiliation was noted in a press
        release announcing his appearance.
      • The
        Sun News of Myrtle
        Beach, South Carolina,
        reported on January
        10, 2008 (retrieved from Nexis) that North spoke “at a Republican
        fundraising dinner in Myrtle
        Beach.
        … North said he was asked at the last minute to fill in for
        scheduled speaker conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, who canceled
        due to a family emergency.”
      • October 2007 fundraiser for
        then-VA state Senate
        candidate Ralph
        Smith. The Roanoke Times reported (retrieved from Nexis) on October 24, 2007, that North flew “into Roanoke
        for an afternoon rally in Christiansburg and an evening fundraising
        event
        in Roanoke County’s Hunting Hills subdivision for Smith, a
        Republican who’s running for the Virginia Senate.”

      $500 to the National
      Republican Senatorial Committee

    • October 2002: $500 to Friends of Jay
      Katzen 2002, a VA
      congressional candidate
    • October 2002: $500 to the Georgia
      Republican Party
    • May 2002: $500 to Bill Salier U.S.
      Senate Committee
      (IA)

    Sarah Palin

    

    Sarah Palin joined Fox News
    on January
    11 as a contributor and host of Real
    American
    Stories. During
    her time at
    Fox, she
    has frequently endorsed Republicans and opposed Democrats.

    House
    members targeted. In a March
    Facebook post,
    Palin put crosshairs on the locations of 20 House Democrats who voted for health care reform and
    implored
    her followers to defeat the 17 members who are facing reelection.

    

    Recent endorsements:

    • Rand
      Paul for Senate (KY). The Paul campaign touts Palin’s endorsement on his website, Vaughn
      Ward for Congress (ID)
    • Adam
      Kinzinger for Congress (IL)
    • Allen
      West for Congress (FL)

    Fundraising/GOP
    appearances:

    • fundraiser
      and rally for
      Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN)
    • April appearance
      at the
      Southern Republican Leadership Conference
    • March rallies for Sen. John McCain
      (AZ)
    • March rallies for the Tea Party Express, with
      the specific
      purpose of opposing Sen. Harry Reid. The Tea Party
      Express
      is organized
      by Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which
      has close ties to a GOP consulting firm.
    • March
      fundraiser
      fundraiser
      for the Republican Party
      of
      Arkansas

    Palin’s Sarah PAC has raised at least $2.5 million
    for the current 2009-2010 election cycle.
    During the first
    quarter of 2010, Sarah PAC
    contributed $2,500 to Wisconsin House candidate Sean Duffy; $2,000 to Kentucky
    Senate candidate Rand Paul; and $1,000 each to
    Allen
    West for Congress, Adam Kinzinger for Congress, Vaughn Ward for Congress, Iraq Veterans for Congress and Combat
    Veterans for
    Congress. Iraq Veterans for Congress
    PAC describes
    itself as a “federally registered political action committee supporting
    the congressional campaigns of conservative Republican Iraq Veterans.”
    Combat Veterans for Congress describes
    itself as “dedicated to supporting the election of fiscally
    conservative Combat Veterans to Congress”; as of April 20, all of its endorsed
    candidates are Republicans.

    Dana
    Perino

    

    Dana Perino fundraiser
    for the Republican Party of New Mexico. The party touts Rove’s Fox News
    affiliation on its website, writing:
    “Come listen
    to the ‘Architect,’ of President Bush’s 2000 & 2004
    campaigns; former deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to President
    George
    W. Bush; Fox News Contributor.”

  • Scheduled
    April fundraiser
    for the Alabama
    Republican Party. A press release
    touting the event
    notes Rove’s Fox News affiliation, writing: “Rove joins fellow Fox
    News contributor Dick Morris as keynote speakers for official Alabama
    Republican Party events in 2010.”  
  • Scheduled
    April fundraiser
    for the South Carolina Republican Party.
  • April fundraiser
    for the Denver
    Republican Party and Denver-Metro Republican Party committees.
  • April fundraiser
    for the Albany County (NY) GOP. An Albany County GOP press release notes
    Rove’s Fox News affiliation.
  • April fundraiser
    form
    for the event touts Rove’s Fox News affiliation.
  • March fundraiser
    March fundraiser
    for Tom
    Berryhill for State Senate (CA).
  • March fundraiser
    fundraiser
    March fundraiser
    for the Tazewell County Republican Party (IL).
  • March
    fundraiser touts
    Rove’s Fox News affiliation on its website.
  • March
    press
    release notes Rove’s Fox News affiliation.
  • March fundraiser
    for the Republican Committee of Allegheny County (PA). Rove mentioned his
    speaking
    appearance on the March 15 edition
    of Fox News Sunday.
  • fundraiser
    for Fresno County Supervisor Debbie Poochigian (CA). A flier
    for the event touts Rove’s Fox News affiliation:

  

  • February fundraiser
    for the Republican Party of Hawaii  
  • February
    fundraiser for
    the Northwest Suburban Republican Parties of Illinois  
  • January
    fundraiser
    for Sen. Richard Burr (NC)
  • fundraiser
    for Lucas County GOP (OH)
  • January
    fundraiser
    for Alan Nunnelee for Congress (TN)
  • fundraiser
    for Virginia Delegate candidate Barbara Comstock (VA)
  • August
    2009 fundraiser
    for Sen.
    Bob Bennett (UT)
  • July 2008 fundraiser
    for the Iowa Republican Party

  In 2009, a donor named
  Karl Rove with
  Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C., addresses contributed to the
  campaigns of Roy
  Blunt for Congress (MO) [$1,000], Marco
  Rubio for Senate (FL) [$1,000], Gilbert
  Baker for Senate (AR) [$2,400], and Pat
  Toomey for Senate (PA) [$1,000]. In 2008, after signing
  on with Fox in February,
  Rove donated
  to the campaigns of Roger
  Wicker for Senate (MS) [$2,300], Kim
  Schmett for Congress (IA) [$2,000], John
  McCain for President [$2,300], and Norm
  Coleman‘s
  Senate and recount fund (MN) [$2,000].

  The National
  Journal reported
  on March 31 that Rove has been “pitching” the political action
  committee American Crossroads, which reportedly plans to spend more than
  $60
  million helping GOP incumbents and challengers during the 2010 cycle.

  Rick Santorum

  

  Rick Santorum has been a
  Fox News
  contributor since
  April 2007.

  Santorum’s
  PAC.
  Santorum’s
  PAC America’s Foundation has raised
  at least $1,500,000 for the current 2009-2010 election cycle.
  According to
  its website,
  America’s
  Foundation has “made contributions to the following candidates in the
  2009/2010 cycle” (a link to the amount, when available with FEC data, is
  included):

  Kelly Ayotte
  for Senate (NH) [$1,000]

  Gresham
  Barrett for Governor (SC) [$3,500]

  Congressman Roy Blunt (MO)
  [$2,000 total]

  Scott Brown
  for Senate (MA) [$5,000]

  Senator
  Richard Burr (NC) [$1,000]

  Chris
  Christie for Govenor (NJ)

  Tom Corbett
  for Governor (PA)

  Congressman
  Charlie Dent (PA-15) [$1,000]

  Keith Fimian
  for Congress (VA-11) [$1,000]

  Senator Jim
  DeMint (SC) [$1,000]

  Trey Grayson
  for Senate (KY) [$1,000]

  Doug Hoffman
  for Congress (NY-23) [$1,000]

  John Kasich
  for Governor (OH) [$1,000]

  Mark Kirk
  for Senate (IL) [$1,000]

  Bob
  McDonnell for Governor (VA)

  Congressman
  Patrick McHenry (NC-10) [$1,000]

  Pat Meehan for Congress
  (PA-7) [$3,000 total]

  Jane Norton
  for Senate (CO) [$1,000]

  Rob Portman for Senate
  (OH) [$2,000 total]

  Congressman
  Bill Shuster (PA-9) [$1,000]

  Todd Tiahrt
  for Senate (KS) [$1,000]

  Pat Toomey for Senate (PA)
  [$2,000 total]

  Senator
  David Vitter (LA) [$1,000]

  Zach Wamp
  for Governor (TN)

  Congressman
  Joe Wilson (SC-2) [$1,000]

  America’s Foundation also gave $1,000
  to the Republican Party of Iowa.

  America’s Foundation’s 2010 first quarter FEC
  report also lists
  contributions
  to:

  • Lou Barletta
    for Congress (PA-11)
    [$1,000]
  • Tim Burns
    for Congress (PA-12)
    [$2,000]
  • Dan Coats
    for Senate (IN) [$1,000]
  • Elizabeth
    Emken for Congress (CA-11)
    [$1,000]
  • Carly
    Fiorina for Governor (CA) [$1,000]
  • Mike
    Fitzpatrick for Congress (PA-8)
    [$1,000]
  • Chuck
    Grassley for Senate (IA) [$1,000]
  • Tom Marino
    for Congress (PA-10)
    [$1,000]
  • Mick Mulvaney
    for Congress (SC-5)
    [$1,000]

  Following the start of
  Santorum’s contributor status with Fox in April 2007, his PAC
  gave contributions to the following GOP causes in late 2007 and
  2008:

  • Lou Barletta for Congress
    (PA) [$5,000]
  • Saxby Chambliss for Senate
    (GA) [$5,000]
  • Norm Coleman for Senate
    (MN) [$2,500]
  • John Cornyn for Senate (TX)
    [$5,000]
  • Charles Dent for Congress
    (PA-15)
    [$3,500]
  • Elizabeth Dole for Senate
    (NC) [$5,000]
  • Philip English for Congress
    (PA-3)
    [$2,500]
  • Keith Fimian for Congress
    (VA) [$2,500]
  • Melissa Hart for Congress
    (PA-4)
    [$2,500]
  • Tom Manion for Congress (PA-8) [$5,000]
  • John McCain Victory
    Committee [$2,500]
  • Republican Federal
    Committee of Pennsylvania [$1,000]
  • Bob Schaffer for Senate
    (CO) [$2,500]
  • Bill Shuster for Congress
    (PA-9)
    [$2,500]
  • John Sununu for Senate (NH)
    [$2,500]
  • Craig Williams for Congress
    (PA-7)
    [$2,500]

  A March 29 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article
  reported that Santorum has “made or planned trips to Iowa, New Hampshire
  and South Carolina this year to speak to Republican groups or stump for
  candidates –
  all key
  early presidential primary states. But [Santorum spokeswoman Virginia]
  Davis
  said the PAC has sponsored or will fund trips by Mr. Santorum to Kansas,
  Nebraska, New York, Louisiana, Florida and Michigan, as well.” Santorum has
  also encouraged
  people “to contribute and volunteer” for Tim Burns for Congress (PA) and Charles Djou for
  Congress
  (HI).

  Fundraising/GOP
  appearances:

  • Scheduled April
    fundraiser
    for the Cheshire County Republican Party (NH).
  • April
    fundraiser
    for the Republican National Committee.
  • April appearance
    at the
    Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
  • March fundraiser
    for Tony Fulton for State Treasurer (NE). Fulton
    touts
    the endorsement of
    “FoxNews commentator & former US Senator Rick
    Santorum” on his website.
  • campaign
    stops filmed an
    endorsement for Barrett.
  • November 2009 fundraising
    letter
    for Tom Corbett for Governor (PA).
  • April
    2009 Republican National Lawyers Association conference.
  • February 2009 fundraiser
    for the Nebraska Republican Party.

  Fox News staffers

  
  

  • In 2006, Fox News
    assistant producer Ann Stewart
    Banker gave $5,000
    to former Sen. Bill Frist’s (TN) Volunteer PAC. Banker has reportedly
    served as a producer for Bill O’Reilly.
  • The Washington Post
    noted
    in 2004 that a “Fox producer for Oliver North, Griffin Jenkins, gave $2,000
    to the Bush-Cheney reelection committee.” Jenkins now serves as a
    served
    as the senior
    vice president of digital media for
    FoxNews.com, gave
    a total
    of $480 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2003.

  Note:
  While Fox Newsers have done advocacy work for national GOP
  organizations and causes that encompass all states, Media
  Matters calculated the “49 states” figure by noting instances of Fox Newsers doing
  state-specific
  advocacy in all states except for Wyoming.

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