Thread by @DawsonSField

Let's see where this goes.
FEC Office of General Counsel investigated Alexandra Chalupa & DNC for foreign collusion based on a Politico article.
OGC found the allegation was false, but found probable cause for other criminal actions. But FEC governors refused to investigate it.

https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1405233608986705929

So FEC OGC found probable cause of collusion between the DNC & Ukraine, but the majority of the commission voted to dismiss any investigation because it wasn't the original allegation.
#ButNothingsHappening

FEC argues that the initial violation wasn't collusion, because Chalupa did not specifically ask for or recieve a thing of value within the email asking Ukraine to push blame to Manafort.
I guess that Trump Tower meeting wasn't collusion either by this standard...

Would be a shame if someone FOIA'd this document where OGC showed there was probable cause that Chalupa & DNC were illegally colluding with the Ukrainians...

So the career investigators & lawyers at FEC did believe that colluding with the Ukrainians violated US election laws.
fec.gov/files/legal/mu…

Did we know before that a DNC official asked Chalupa to get Ukraine to announce an investigation of Manafort?

I guess under this FEC commissioners ruling, asking Ukraine to announce an investigation of Biden wasn't a violation either...

Now there was lots of Russian disinformation released on this issue. BUT the disinfo was released to muddy the waters by Ukrainians working for Russia, the same Ukrainians that tried to rig the 2016 & 2020 elections.

Most unusual footnote ever!

Looks like Andrea Chalupa lied to the investigators about foreign agents (Russians?) approaching her friends & offering to pay them money for dirt on her.

But they do believe her admissions of colluding with the Ukrainians because they have her emails...

So Chalupa knew in 2015 that Manafort was going to join the Trump campaign, probable because her friends were planting him there! When NYT announced Manafort joining the Trump team she texted DNC a link to the article & said ‘This is everything to take down Trump.’

The DNC then attempted to get the President of Ukraine to publicly announce allegations against Manafort to sell the Russian collusion narrative.

Wonder who at ABC was supposed to ask this question?
But clearly her email implies that Poroshenko's regime was under political pressure & could relieve such pressure by helping the DNC point the finger at Manafort.

Chalupa claimed she copied a Republican leaning Ukrainian-American activist so it would seem less partisan of a request to the Ukrainians.

So out of 10 media outlets, Chalupa had "secured about a dozen people to ask the question..."
But Poroshenko had Shulyar tell Chalupa that he would not take questions about Manafort as it would be interfering in the US election!

Miranda meanwhile had lined up ABC to cover the story about the question but it was never asked.
She then tried to find a reporter she knew at Capitol Hill to ask the question too!

So the FEC Commissioners ignored the finding by their career legal staff that the DNC aksed a foreign head of government to influence the 2016 presidential election.

That sounds like collusion.

They found that Chalupa was acting as an agent of the DNC & following the orders of DNC's communications director in colluding with foreign officials.

Chalupa also promised a quid pro quo in that if Poroshenko was willing to influence the 2016 election against Trump by answering Manafort questions she promised it would “get Democratic presidential candidates aware and engaged.”
There was really only 1 candidate Hillary Clinton!

The DNC, through Chalupa, solicited a foreign head of state for an in-kind contribution to the Hillary Clinton campaign. That it did so promising political advantages & the attention of DNC presidential candidates to a foreign official.

The DNC intended to use the illegal in-kind contribution from a foreign official "to undermine an electoral opponent, Trump, including through publication in an ABC News story. "

The DNC knew it was going to gain something of value from Poroshenko & had a plan to weaponize his answers through ABC 7 other media to damage Trump's chances of winning the election.

FEC notes that the DNC could have spent money on oppo research & advertising to spread info on Manafort, but it would be reportable (unless paid to Perkins Coie as legal fees.)
So the DNC was trying to use Ukrainian resources & funding to pay for events to spread oppo research!

DNC knowingly pressured a foreign official to aid in their effort to win an election for Hillary Clinton. And Poroshenko's statement, not as an individual or volunteer, but as President of a foreign nation acting in an official capacity would have been uniquely valuable.

"The DNC Sought Poroshenko’s Assistance “for the Purpose of Influencing” the 2016 Presidential Election"

Chalupa pretending that she was just a concerned activist wanting the Manafort question asked is irrelevant. She was acting on instructions from the DNC, getting paid by DNC, & a DNC official had a plan to use the question to influence the election before it would have been asked

Chalupa even admitted to investigators that one of her motivations was to harm Trump's campaign & even referred to Manafort joining Trump as 'this is everything to take down Trump'

While claiming to be bipartisan, she specifically states this will help her get HRC engaged with Poroshenko, but then makes comments about Republicans that are redacted from this production.
Most unusual...

Chalupa told investigators "And I would have done this 100 percent with or without ever talking to anyone at the DNC.”
She may be telling the truth, but it might be because she would have done it for other employers.
Wonder which Ukrainian oligarchs were paying for her services?

The Ukrainian officials also recognized Chalupa's request as a political act designed to influence the 2016 election, knew she worked for the DNC, & wanted no part of her plan to use them to influence the election.

This doesn't look like probable cause, it looks like proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Not one thing cited came from Politico article or any Russian disinformation.

It is ALL from the emails & testimony of the participants!

In June 0f 2020, the DNC filed a motion with the FEC Commissioners asking them to prohibit the investigators from getting discovery of DNC records through a subpoena. The investigators gave up to get their probable cause findings in writing before statute of limitations expired.

Statement by 2 commissioners that Ellen Weintraub ruled that a 2-3 motion to make the results public was a 3-2 vote the other way. Hence the cover up allegation, which may be the norm at FEC.

fec.gov/files/legal/mu…

So while the commissioners voted to overrule their Office of Legal Counsel finding that a public statement by Ukraine's president to influence a US Presidential election was not a thing of value, they also wanted to bury that finding of probable cause.

Let's release all of the FEC files that they have refused to release!

The biggest question I have yet is that FEC Commissioners ignored the OGC's findings of probable cause, because former Acting AG Matt Whitaker notified them of different allegations that they claim were Russian disinformation. So they refused to look at the real crimes OGC found.

So the DNC was guilty, but they were guilty of real crimes not the fake information that was added to it by @MattWhitaker46 from articles printed in Politico.
Were the fake stories planted to spoil the evidence with false information?
fec.gov/files/legal/mu…