Hillary Clinton Campaign, DNC Fined $113K for Falsifying 'Steele Dossier' Expense

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democrat National Committee were fined on Tuesday $113,000 by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for hiding their spending on the fraudulent Russia “dossier.”

Hillary’s campaign and DNC allegedly reported payments to Democrat law firm Perkins Coie as legal expenses instead of earmarking them accurately as “paying Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump,” according to the original complaint of Campaign Legal Center.

First reported by the Washington Examiner, the DNC and Clinton campaign agreed to jointly pay $113,000. Hillary’s campaign would pay $8,000, and the DNC will pay $105,000, a small sum for allegedly “misreporting the purpose of certain disbursements” related to the “Steele dossier.”

The “dossier” was created by former British spy Christopher Steele with foreign sources, including sources allegedly very close to the Kremlin. The “dossier” was used as evidence to spy on Trump’s campaign, though a Department of Justice Inspector General report said the FBI had found it to be false.

The “dossier” has been defended by Democrats as not being improper foreign interference in the 2016 election because Democrats “purchased” it during the 2020 presidential campaign against Donald Trump.

It appears the purchase of the “dossier” was illegally misreported, according to the FEC.

The dossier, leaked public by BuzzFeed News in January 2017, asserted tons of false, inaccurate, “unproven and sometimes salacious allegations about ties between Russia and Donald Trump, as well as others in his orbit,” Politico reported.

DNC spokesperson Daniel Wessel told Politico the organization and campaign do “not concede, but will not further contest the Commission’s finding” to save money on legal fees. “We settled aging and silly complaints from the 2016 election about ‘purpose descriptions’ in our FEC report,” he said.

Trump reacted to the fine on Wednesday with a celebratory press release. “Wow! Just out that the 2016 Clinton Campaign and the DNC paid the FEC today for violating the law.”

NEW FROM 45:

“Breaking News: Wow! Just out that the 2016 Clinton Campaign and the DNC paid the FEC today for violating the law by failing to disclose that their payments for “legal advice and services” to law firm Perkins Coie was, in fact, a guise to hire numerous companies…” pic.twitter.com/SKsRzt0xbS

— Margo Martin (@margommartin) March 30, 2022

Last week, Trump sued Hilary Clinton and Democratic Party leaders for falsely accusing him of drumming up the Russia Russia Russia hoax.

“In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot –- one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy,” the lawsuit read.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø