For nearly a year, the two most vocal members of Congress, Reps. As Politico recently revealed, Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are essentially the ones who are not allowed to make public appearances, statements, or fundraisers. He has not made any calls and is quietly pursuing his California First Amendment lawsuit.
But perhaps most interestingly, no political committee has reported any legal costs related to the lawsuit in the nine months since it was filed. And now one of the lawyers in the case is facing disbarment.
Gaetz and Greene filed the lawsuit in July, seeking a judgment against two California cities and a left-wing nonprofit over the cancellation of political events during their 2021 summer fundraising tour. Plaintiffs also include Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Greene, both of whom hold formal congressional qualifications. Their campaign committee and Put America First, the community chest that organized the 2021 tour, also participated. The parties filed the lawsuit “on behalf of themselves and those planning to attend the political rally scheduled for July 17, 2021.”
Since then, the case has progressed through several stages, including an amended complaint, several motions to dismiss, and a hearing.
Last week, Politico reported that Judge Hernan D. Berra dismissed the conspiracy case against the nonprofit as “astonishingly flawed” — Gates and Greene had filed a lawsuit against the defendants, including the National Association. The lawsuit against two California municipalities, Anaheim and Riverside, was allowed to proceed.
But while the lawsuit is moving forward, it’s unclear how the money will be raised. There are no federal campaign finance records of payments or loans made to lawyers in the case last year by political committees associated with Mr. Gates or Ms. Greene, or by federal political committees.
Indeed, despite Gates and Greene’s tireless efforts to “own the library” and raise money from their efforts, they have remained essentially radio silent about the case from the beginning.
Campaign finance law experts agreed that legal services should be accounted for on public documents.
Jordan Libowitz, director of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast that he could not imagine a scenario in which a person would avoid reporting requirements.
“Vendors generally need to be disclosed,” Libowitz said. “It’s not unheard of for a campaign to incur debt to a law firm and pay it back over time, rather than in one lump sum after the campaign. However, reporting a debt to a firm for services is not unheard of. There will be a need.”
And at this point, that’s going to be a pretty hefty bill.
Gates and Greene threatened to sue over the 2021 cancellation, but they didn’t file suit until two years later. The complaint, filed in July last year in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that the defendants were unable to free speech when they canceled an America First rally amid public backlash related to the Jan. 6 assault. accused of engaging in a conspiracy to violate the protection of Child sex trafficking allegations against the U.S. Capitol and Gaetz.
Judge Berra last week ruled against the municipality, particularly regarding whether it had delegated policy-making authority to the private contractors who canceled the event or whether it may have threatened the private contractors. The court ruled that there was a point. If so, the ruling said, these facts could demonstrate a clear violation by the government of Gates and Greene’s civil rights.
Vella was less than kind to the conspiracy accusations against the nonprofit, calling these arguments “completely devoid of specificity” and calling them “legally and literally a conspiracy based purely on speculation.” It’s a theory.”
“The effect of the plaintiffs’ unprecedented and shockingly inadequate pleadings (bringing nine civil rights groups to federal court for speaking out against the case) has been felt by citizens across the political spectrum and “It should be shocking,” he wrote.
But one of the most striking aspects of the case is the name of one of the lawyers working on the case, John Eastman. He is the architect of the bogus legal theory that former President Donald Trump relied on to justify his extortion attempts. Transfer of power to Joe Biden.
Mr. Eastman and Mr. Trump were indicted in Georgia in August for their efforts, and a California judge subsequently revoked Mr. Eastman’s license to practice law in that state, citing “very serious ethical violations.” recommended that he be disqualified.
The ruling came just five days after the judge in the Gates-Green case ruled last week that the lawsuits against both cities could proceed. Eastman said he plans to appeal the ruling, but unless he wins his appeal, he will not be able to practice law in California, including in the Gates Green case. (However, Mr. Eastman is not the lead attorney; that role has fallen to Alexander Haberbusch of the Rex Rex Institute.)
Despite the complex constitutional issues at the heart of all drafting efforts and disputes, there is no public record of the cost of these services, and that could be problematic, legal experts say.
Federal Election Commission filings show that within the past year, Mr. Gaetz’s and Mr. Greene’s campaign accounts and related committees have not been used against Mr. Eastman or any of the three attorneys who worked on the case. It is shown that no payment was made. Furthermore, there is no record of in-kind contributions to legal services or reports of debts incurred for that work. Campaigns and committees may accept volunteer legal services, but their scope is strictly limited to his FEC-related matters, and the value of those volunteer services must still be reported.
On the official side, House members can accept pro bono representation in civil matters, but that exemption doesn’t seem to strictly apply here, but parliamentary ethics experts told The Daily Beast that the difference in this case is He said the matter was so trivial that he could not press charges. I can’t seem to go anywhere.
The House Ethics Guidelines define free legal services as “challenging the validity of a federal law or regulation,” “challenging the legality of the actions of a federal agency,” or “challenging the actions of a federal official.” stipulates that it must be related to Formal competence. ”
Still, Caleb Burns, a campaign finance law expert and partner at Wiley Lane, raised contingency agreements as another possibility.
“Typically, a campaign that hires an attorney for legal work must disclose payments for that work in reports filed with the FEC. If the work is incurred and the campaign has not yet paid for it. , the campaign will disclose that amount as a debt owed by the campaign,” Burns told The Daily Beast.
“However, if the attorney is operating under a standard contingency fee agreement, it will likely not be disclosed unless and until the campaign wins the case and pays the attorney a contingency fee.” he said.
Many law firms accept plaintiffs on a contingency basis and collect payments only if they win the case, but there is no record of federal political law payments being made in this manner. Asked about this possibility, Libowitz said he couldn’t recall any political committee entering into a contingency agreement with its lawyers, saying, “If we lose, it means we won’t get paid; The service will become private.”
“Mr. Eastman would be expected to make some kind of payment,” Libowitz said. “Someone has to pay the bill.”
Eastman did not respond to The Daily Beast’s questions for this article. The Daily Beast also reached out to spokespeople for Gaetz and Greene’s campaigns for comment, but did not receive a response.
However, it appears that Mr. Gates and Mr. Green have actually made some payments to Mr. Eastman previously in connection with preparatory work for the lawsuit. The America First Joint Committee sent approximately $15,000 to the Eastman Constitutional Advisory Group in two separate sessions in September and December 2021, when Gaetz and Greene first became aware of the possibility of a lawsuit. reported dollars. Green’s campaign then paid Eastman an additional $10,000 in January 2022.
But then the payments stopped, even though the lawsuit had just begun.
Considering all the work put into this case since July, three attorneys participated in the 95-section docket, including the original complaint, discovery, amended complaint, multiple motions and declarations, and the dismissal hearing. This case, then, does not seem plausible. It is believed that the total $25,000 from these early payments could nearly cover the total cost. (In addition to seeking declaratory relief and unspecified monetary damages, Gates and Greene are also asking the defendants to pay their “litigation costs, including attorneys’ fees.”)
It’s also unclear where the money will come from for a simple reason. Because the America First Committee is basically bankrupt.
The 2021 fundraising tour at the center of the lawsuit was a failure, The Daily Beast previously reported. After a brisk first few months, the two campaigns and the joint committee collectively posted a loss of $342,000, while collectively he raised less than $60,000 in donations. The largest donors to the committee were the Gates and Greene campaigns themselves, each contributing $150,000 in initial seed money. (Most of that ended up going toward Gaetz’s $250,000 bill to his PR firm, which was nearly 90 percent of his committee budget at the time.)
Although the junket garnered some grassroots support, it also sparked a storm of public outcry. It wasn’t entirely unexpected — months earlier, Gaetz and Greene had played key roles in President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and Gaetz was a federal child molester. It endured a barrage of alarming headlines related to the trafficking investigation. Members of Congress and some of their aides.
Public backlash culminated in California’s cancellation. In response, Gaetz and Greene held an impromptu public meeting, where Greene made threats about vaccines and Gaetz denounced the Justice Department to a mixed crowd of die-hards and hecklers.
Things didn’t get much better from there. By the end of 2022, Put America First had raised a total of $513,000, including $300,000 from candidates, but zero dollars after October 2022, according to FEC records. At the end of 2023, the committee had just $22,744.58 in the bank. The next report is scheduled for April 15th.
Gates and Greene’s campaigns could belatedly turn to their own donors again, this time to cover legal costs.
At the end of 2023, each side will have about $1.9 million in their accounts, which they can transfer as much as they want to the joint committee.
However, this time the atmosphere is different. The relationship between Gaetz and Greene has been famously and publicly in jeopardy, especially since Gaetz launched an insurrection campaign to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in early 2023. This is reportedly in retaliation for the House ethics investigation into child sex trafficking allegations.
But Greene sided with McCarthy throughout the controversy, rebuking Gaetz and even demanding an apology after McCarthy was fired in October.
“[T]”To the eight Republicans who joined Democrats in ousting Kevin McCarthy, they need to apologize, and we need to repair our conference in order to move forward,” Greene said at the time.
