Steele Dossier: Hillary's Legal Transgressions?

Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have agreed to pay $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigation into whether they violated campaign finance law by misreporting spending on research that eventually became the infamous Steele dossier.

The Clinton campaign hired Perkins Coie, which then hired Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on Republican candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia. However, on FEC forms, the Clinton campaign classified the spending as legal services.

The FEC concluded that the Clinton campaign and DNC misreported the money that funded the dossier, masking it as legal services and legal and compliance consulting instead of opposition research. The Clinton campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000 and the DNC $105,000.

While the dossier has been largely discredited since its publication, with core aspects of the material exposed as unsupported and unproven rumours, the FBI did invest significant resources in attempting to corroborate it and relied on it to obtain surveillance warrants targeting former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the DNC agreed to pay $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission investigation

Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have agreed to pay $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigation. The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed an administrative complaint in 2018, accusing the Democrats of misreporting payments made to a law firm during the 2016 campaign to obscure the spending.

The Clinton campaign hired Perkins Coie, which then hired Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on Republican candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia. However, on FEC forms, the Clinton campaign classified the spending as legal services. The initial complaint stated that the Democrats:

> were able to avoid publicly reporting on their statutorily required FEC disclosure forms the fact that they were paying Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump with the intent of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC argued that the payments had been described accurately, but according to documents, they agreed to settle without conceding to avoid further legal costs. The Clinton campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000, and the DNC $105,000.

The Steele dossier was a report compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele and financed by Democrats. It included salacious allegations about Trump's conduct in Russia and alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The FBI invested significant resources in attempting to corroborate the dossier and relied on it to obtain surveillance warrants targeting former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. However, the dossier has since been largely discredited, with core aspects of the material exposed as unsupported and unproven rumours.

The Clinton campaign was fined $8,000 and the DNC $105,000

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were fined by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for misreporting the funding that went into the creation of the Steele dossier. The dossier was a report compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, which included unverified and salacious allegations about Donald Trump's conduct in Russia, as well as allegations about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The Clinton campaign was fined $8,000, while the DNC was fined $105,000. These fines were the result of a complaint filed by the Coolidge Reagan Foundation in 2018, which accused the Democrats of misreporting payments made to a law firm during the 2016 campaign to obscure the spending.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC had initially argued that the payments had been described accurately, but they eventually agreed to settle without conceding to avoid further legal costs. The FEC letter announcing the fines also revealed that related complaints against Steele, Perkins Coie (the law firm hired by the Clinton campaign), and Fusion GPS (the opposition research company that was hired by Perkins Coie) were dismissed, with all three parties having previously denied any wrongdoing.

The Clinton campaign and DNC misreported the money that funded the dossier, masking it as legal services and legal and compliance consulting

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were fined for misreporting the money that funded the Steele dossier, masking it as "legal services" and "legal and compliance consulting".

The Clinton campaign was fined $8,000, and the DNC was fined $105,000, totalling $113,000. The fines were the result of a Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigation, which found that the Clinton campaign and DNC had violated campaign finance law by misreporting their spending on research that eventually became the Steele dossier.

The Clinton campaign hired Perkins Coie, which then hired Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on Republican candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia. However, on FEC forms, the Clinton campaign classified the spending as legal services.

The Clinton campaign and DNC argued that the payments had been described accurately. However, they agreed to settle without conceding to avoid further legal costs.

The Clinton campaign and DNC had argued that the payments had been described accurately

The Clinton campaign and the DNC had argued that the payments to Perkins Coie, the law firm they hired, had been accurately described as payments for legal services. However, Perkins Coie then hired Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on Republican candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia.

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation, which had filed an administrative complaint in 2018, accused the Democrats of intentionally obscuring their payments to Perkins Coie and failing to publicly disclose the true purpose of those payments. The complaint alleged that the Democrats were able to avoid publicly reporting on their FEC disclosure forms that they were paying Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump with the intent of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The Clinton campaign and DNC, however, maintained that the payments had been described accurately but agreed to settle without conceding to avoid further legal costs. The Clinton campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000 and the DNC to $105,000, according to a pair of conciliatory agreements attached to the letter sent to the Coolidge Reagan Foundation.

The Clinton campaign and DNC agreed to settle without conceding to avoid further legal costs

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) agreed to pay a fine of $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigation into whether they had violated campaign finance law by misreporting spending on research that became the Steele dossier. The Clinton campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000, while the DNC was fined $105,000.

The Clinton campaign hired Perkins Coie, which then hired Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on Republican candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia. However, on FEC forms, the Clinton campaign classified the spending as legal services.

The Clinton campaign and DNC had argued that the payments had been described accurately, but they agreed to settle without conceding to avoid further legal costs. The lawyer representing the campaign and the DNC, Graham Wilson, did not comment on the settlement. A spokesperson for the DNC downplayed the decision, stating that they had "settled aging and silly complaints from the 2016 election about 'purpose descriptions' in our FEC report."

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