Report accuses Vindman of breaking law with congressional campaigning

Eugene Vindman, the onetime military officer whose claim to fame is that he listened to complaints from his brother, Alex, about President Donald Trump’s telephone conversation with Ukrainian officials and then worked in the Washington, D.C., system to make the claim that the conversation was an abuse of power, now is running for Congress.

He’s attracted support from some of the extremists in Congress, like Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

And he’s accused in a Free Beacon report of violating the law.

The brothers Vindman were the impetus behind the unfounded claims that Trump was abusing the system by asking Ukraine for an investigation of the hanky-panky going on with Hunter Biden’s million-dollar payments from Burisma as well as Joe Biden’s threat he would withhold a billion dollars of American help if officials didn’t fire a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating that company.

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Ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi based one of her failed impeach-and-remove attempts against President Trump on their statements.

But, in Eugene Vindman’s campaign as a Democrat in Virginia’s 7th congressional district, his campaign recently referred questions to an outside organization, in what the report explains is a violation of campaign law.

“Something funny happened when the Washington Free Beacon contacted the campaign of Trump whistleblower turned congressional candidate Eugene Vindman last week. Vindman, a 24-year Army veteran, says he ‘served our nation in combat.’ A 2019 Daily Mail piece said he ‘has not seen combat.’ The Free Beacon asked the campaign to explain the discrepancy,” the report said.

The report noted Vindman’s campaign manager, Jeremy Levinson, referred the caller to a worker for a political action committee and insisted “future questions” could be directed to the PAC worker identified as Travis Tazelaar, political director for VoteVets PAC, a leftist organization.

That group already has endorsed Vindman and donated the maximum $10,000 allowed to his campaign.

Subsequently, Tazelaar, identifying himself as political director for the PAC, issued a statement about Vindman going to Iraq as a lawyer.

“The statement was unremarkable, but the campaign’s decision to use Tazelaar to handle its communications is a big deal. It baffled ethics experts, who say it is almost certainly a violation of campaign finance laws,” the report said.

It explained, “As a ‘hybrid PAC,’ VoteVets is permitted to make $10,000 in direct contributions to Vindman, a threshold the group hit in May. Its subsequent communications work for the campaign, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust executive director Kendra Arnold explained, is considered an ‘in-kind contribution’ that places VoteVets above the legal contribution limit.”

Further, federal election law bans campaigns and PACs from working together, except under certain circumstances.

That makes VoteVets’ role as the Vindman campaign’s communication arm in violation the law, Arnold explained.

“Super PACs and campaigns are not permitted to work together on communications, which prohibits campaigns altogether from using super PACs as vendors for communications. In my opinion, this would most certainly extend to hybrid PACs.”

That opinion was like that from campaign finance and election law attorney Jason Torchinsky, who said in an interview with the Free Beacon Vindman’s campaign “would be vulnerable to an FEC complaint and possible FBI complaint as well.”

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