Daily Beast: Gabby Giffords Sues the NRA Over Secret GOP Donation Scheme

A gun control nonprofit founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (R-AZ) sued the National Rifle Association on Tuesday, filing a federal lawsuit alleging that the gun rights group carried out an illegal, multimillion-dollar political coordination scheme that went on for years to the benefit of Donald Trump and other Republicans.

It could also be a landmark case for U.S. election law.

Giffords’ nonprofit—also called Giffords—had previously targeted the NRA in a number of complaints to the Federal Election Commission. Those complaints, first filed in 2018, went unanswered by the agency for so long that on Monday a federal judge granted Giffords the right to sue the NRA itself—opening a door that campaign finance reform advocates say had been locked for too long.

But it did not take Giffords long to act. One day later, the nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center Action, which has been working with the nonprofit, filed the new lawsuit in D.C. District Court.

The lawsuit centers around the allegation that the NRA skirted campaign finance laws—contribution limits and disclosure requirements—by using a network of shell companies to funnel money to Trump and other GOP candidates. The lawsuit also alleges that the NRA-affiliated shell companies illegally coordinated with Republican campaigns by using the same vendors and personnel to run ads for these candidates.

The lawsuit claims these vendors, which had different names when working for campaigns and when they were working for private companies, were “functionally indistinguishable.”…

The sense of relief was shared by Paul Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at watchdog Common Cause, who told The Daily Beast that in the federal campaign finance world, “there’s no cop on the beat.”

“For too long the FEC, primarily due to GOP Commissioners blocking agency action, has allowed massive violations of campaign finance law to go unpunished. Political players in Washington know there’s no cop on the beat. They cross legal lines, get away with it, and then commit even more egregious violations,” Ryan said.

He explained that, in response to complaints, “the FEC drags its feet for years”—often allowing the five-year statute of limitations to expire, after which the agency cannot haul violators into court.

“Outrageously, commissioners then sometimes acknowledge that violations occurred, but that the FEC has run out of time to do anything about it,” Ryan continued. “The Campaign Legal Center and Giffords aren’t taking it anymore. This is vitally important work to hold lawbreakers accountable—work the FEC should be doing, but isn’t. Godspeed.”