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- The Federal Election Commission shot down a 2016 complaint against the Hillary Clinton campaign.
- A Virginia man accused media outlets of providing "in-kind" campaign donations via favorable coverage.
- The FEC board unanimously dismissed the complaint, which relied on Wikileaks emails.
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In a unanimous vote, the board of the Federal Election Commission dismissed a complaint alleging the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign broke the law by soliciting favorable media coverage.
The 6-0 FEC vote dismissed the complaint that relied primarily on Wikileaks emails from Guccifer 2.0.
Several prominent reporters and media personalities were mentioned in the complaint, including Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, John Harwood of CNN (formerly of CNBC, where he was during the 2016 campaign), as well as outlets such as The Boston Globe, Politico, NBC, and Univision.
Haberman, a Pulitzer Prize winner who revealed some of the Trump administration's most embarrassing and politically costly scandals through her reporting, was mentioned in a Clinton campaign email obtained by The Intercept in October 2016 during the Wikileaks saga.
Although former Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald wrote that "Haberman's stories were more sophisticated, nuanced, and even somewhat more critical than what the Clinton memo envisioned," the complaint from Tony Dane of Virginia used the article to support broader accusations of illegal donations.
"We believe it is apparent on the face of the Complaint that it is without merit," Dana Green, a Times legal consultant, wrote to the FEC in response to the complaint back in 2018. "The exhibits attached to the Complaint do not support Mr. Dane's assertions and the two articles Ms. Haberman identified in Mr. Dane's complaint plainly are not coordinated communications or contributions to the Clinton campaign subject to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended."
Dane's complaint included multiple typos and insisted the FEC needed to act before Election Day in 2016 because the Clinton campaign was breaking campaign finance laws by using favorable media coverage as an unpaid or "in-kind" donation.
Other evidence in the complaint involved leaked emails from Clinton campaign staff planning off the record parties for media personalities.
Dane submitted the complaint on his own behalf and not that of the Trump campaign.
While the cozy tone in some of the emails drew criticism from Trump allies who were frustrated at what they saw as a double standard in campaign coverage, not one member of the FEC board voted against closing the file on the complaint.