NRCC General Counsel should be sanctioned by D.C. Bar Assn if involved

[DesEtoiles]

Don McGahn is the General Counsel for the NRCC. If he was involved with fraudulent, illegal or harassing robocalls, he should be sanctioned by the District of Coumbia Bar Association.

See below for the text of Section 8.4 of the DC Bar's Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys, in particular regarding "dishonesty" and "deceit".

If you believe Don McGahn has violated a provision of Section 8.4, then email or fax the District of Columbia Bar Association and file an ethics complaint regarding Don McGahn regarding the NRCC's robocalls.

Then email or fax a copy of that complaint to the NRCC.

District of Columbia Bar Rules of Professional Conduct:
Rule 8.4 Misconduct
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(a) Violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another;
(b) Commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty,
trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;
(c) Engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation;
(d) Engage in conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice;
(e) State or imply an ability to influence improperly a government agency or official;
(f) Knowingly assist a judge or judicial officer in conduct that is a violation of applicable rules of judicial conduct or other law; or
(g) Seek or threaten to seek criminal charges or disciplinary charges solely to obtain an advantage in a civil matter.

COMMENT
<1> Many kinds of illegal conduct reflect adversely on fitness to practice law, such as offenses involving fraud and the offense of willful failure to file an income tax return. However, some kinds of offenses carry no such implication. Traditionally, the distinction was drawn in terms of offenses involving "moral turpitude." That concept can be construed to include offenses concerning some matters of personal morality, such as adultery and comparable offenses, that have no specific connection to fitness for the practice of law.

Although a lawyer is personally answerable to the entire criminal law, a lawyer should be professionally answerable only for offenses that indicate lack of those characteristics relevant to law practice. Offenses involving violence, dishonesty, breach of trust, or serious interference with the administration of justice are in that category. A pattern of repeated offenses, even ones of minor significance when considered separately, can indicate indifference to legal obligation.

Don McGahn is the current General Counsel for the NRCC. (Contact information for McGahn here, type in McGahn as Last Name, here
and here). He also worked as a campaign finance lawyer for disgraced and hopefully prison-bound Tom DeLay (more below).

When working for DeLay, McGahn threatened to sue any TV station in Houston that ran an anti-DeLay ad! These ads are false!, he shouted:

From the: Off the Kuff blog, January 12, 2006:

Liberal groups Public Campaign Action Fund and Campaign for America's Future bought a week's worth of time slots for a commercial highlighting ethical questions about DeLay's close dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges last week and is cooperating with a federal investigation of his contacts with congressmen and their aides.
...
DeLay attorney Don McGahn implied in a letter Tuesday that the stations would be legally responsible for airing falsehoods about DeLay if the ads ran as scheduled.
KTRK (Channel 13) decided Tuesday to withhold the ad. KPRC (Channel 2), KHOU (Channel 11) and KRIV (Channel 26), which provide local news programming, decided Wednesday against starting the commercials that day.
McGahn's letter served to "alert me that there may be inconsistencies in the ad," said KHOU President and General Manager Peter Diaz, but he would not specify what elements of the ad were inconsistent.
The other stations declined to discuss their decisions.

<...>
Dallas attorney Joe Chumlea, who has handled several libel and defamation cases, said McGahn likely would not have had a strong legal case against stations running the ad because the Supreme Court provides broadcasters with the highest level of protection when it comes to political ads.

Broadcasters can only be liable for damages if they air something that they know is false or recklessly ignore the fact that it could be, he said, but someone such as McGahn telling a broadcaster that an ad is false doesn't meet the standard.

Here's more background on McGahn:

From a letter to the editor appearing in The Hill:

As the Democracy 21 release states, McGahn served as counsel to the NRCC when it was caught in an effort to circumvent the newly enacted law to ban soft money by transferring $1 million of soft money to an outside group, the Leadership Forum. That NRCC scheme was abandoned and the money was returned after the scheme became public. The FEC's general counsel concluded that "had the money not been returned, the evidence would have pointed strongly to a conclusion that the NRCC `financed' the Forum," a conclusion which would have made the NRCC scheme illegal.

The Democracy 21 release also noted that in serving as a campaign finance lawyer for DeLay's Leadership PAC, ARMPAC, McGahn dismissed and denigrated FEC audit findings against the PAC as based on "FEC accounting minutiae," according to an Aug. 12 Washington Post article. As the press release stated, the FEC audit found that ARMPAC had improperly spent more than $200,000 in soft money in the 2002 elections and failed to report more than $300,000 it owed to vendors.

As the Democracy 21 release stated, Don McGahn's record and comments do not lead to the conclusion that he would be an independent-minded FEC commissioner, as opposed to a partisan agent of the congressional Republicans.

In a column Sept. 1, 2005, Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote, "The law is administered by the Federal Election Commission, whose six members are famously responsive to the members of Congress who put them in their jobs." If congressional leaders are allowed to place Don McGahn on the captive FEC, this practice of "famously responsive" commissioners would simply be continued at the expense of the nation's campaign-finance laws and the interests of the American people.

[DesEtoiles]

1. kick

[originalpckelly]

2. Indeed he was involved in an illegal scheme...

we know that the NRCC broke the FCC regulation about identifying a call when it is first picked up.

In other words instead of putting the source of the call at the start, the NRCC put it at the end. In addition it appears that they place the part about the various Democratic candidates at the beginning to deceive people of the calls origin. If this placement of "I'm calling with information about Tammy Duckworth" part at the beginning was intentional, then it is also likely they intended to annoy voters.

That would constitute a violation of 47 USC 223. Anyone at the NRCC who authorized this campaign, in addition to the people at the company who were involved in this campaign, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.


In other words we are going to nail these bastards this time. Either they'll pay millions for legal fees and time in jail or they'll have to pay millions in settlements, but one way or another this illegal activity will be punished.

They aren't going to get away with it.

[KittyWampus]

3. I hope Dean and Emanuel WILL be following up on this

[DesEtoiles]

4. kick