Watchdog groups sue federal agency over NRA’s alleged campaign coordination 'scheme.'
A pair of legal groups sued the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, seeking to compel the agency to enforce the law amid what they allege is mounting evidence that the National Rifle Association has engaged in “an elaborate scheme … to unlawfully coordinate with candidates it supports for federal office,” including with the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
“The FEC is supposed to be the nation’s election watchdog, but in this case, it didn’t bite, bark, or even whimper,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, in statement. “Instead, it turned a blind eye … In a desperate attempt to hold onto power and influence, NRA executives have flagrantly ignored our campaign finance laws and undermined the integrity of our election system. The FEC must bring illegal campaign conduct into the light of day.
A spokesperson for the NRA did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment, while a spokesperson for the Trump campaign declined to comment. Sen. Sheldeon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., opened a probe into this matter earlier this year, demanding documents from the NRA, the Trump campaign and the relevant vendors. A spokesperson for Sen. Whitehouse told ABC News last week that none of them have responded to those requests, either.
Critics of the FEC have described the agency as one crippled by partisanship. The commission was designed to consist of six members – no more than three from each party – and four of them must agree to launch an investigation, a system that prioritized compromise.
Others, like campaign finance lawyer Caleb Burns of the Washington, D.C. law firm Wiley Rein, see the partisan divide as a crucial safeguard"to avoid political abuse by one party of the other" when regulating"political activity that is highly protected by the First Amendment’s freedoms of speech and association."
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