A highly acclaimed expert in election law says that Hillary Clinton may well have broken the law by directing an outside group to put “ducks on the ground” at Trump events and that a criminal investigation may be in order. Elliot Berke, managing partner of Berke/Farah LLP, has been named by Chambers USA as a “Nationwide Best Lawyer” and by Washingtonian as one of “Washington’s Best Lawyers.”
He appeared on Fox News Monday evening to discuss the latest Project Veritas video, which implicated Hillary Clinton in a possible FEC violation.
In the video, longtime community organizer Bob Creamer said that it was Hillary’s idea to have activists dress up in Donald Duck costumes and protest outside of Trump/Pence events. Creamer is a convicted felon and husband of Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky. He has visited the White House 342 times since 2009 and met with Organizer-in-Chief Barack Obama a total of 47 times. Creamer was caught on video affirming that Clinton is aware of “all” of his work and that his group Democracy Partners has a daily telephone call with the Clinton campaign to coordinate efforts.
“In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground,” said Creamer. “So, by God, we would get ducks on the ground.”
Activists suggested on tape that the goal was to provoke a violent reaction from Trump supporters — a tactic known in progressive circles as “bird-dogging.”
Special Report’s Bret Baier asked Berke if Hillary and company had broken any campaign laws, given that it was Hillary Clinton’s idea to deploy the ducks.
“Any time a candidate, committee or political party is working with an outside group, you get into possible in-kind contributions,” Berke said. “Here, the allegation is the candidate herself may have directed an outside group to engage in this behavior, and if so — this could be an in-kind contribution.”
He added that “in-kind contributions can be permissible, but they need to be reported. Because we’re dealing with an outside, third-party group here, that group may also take corporate contributions, and if that’s the case, then it clearly would be illegal.”
If the videos result in an FEC filing, the complaint would take “18 months, maybe even years” to go through the process, according to the counselor.
Berke said in the short term, it’s “a question for the voters in terms of trustworthiness,” but” in terms of the law, if there were actual conversations about doing this, if there were willing and knowing violations, then, yes — that could turn into a criminal investigation.”
At least two complaints have been already filed at the Federal Election Commission: one FEC complaint was filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation and the second complaint was filed by Project Veritas Action.
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