NOTE: We temporarily pulled this post when a reader tweeted it with the frame that Schultz was receiving "dark money" donations from the National Rifle Association. This reader asked me via direct messages whether that was accurate--and I explained no, it was not accurate.
Rather, the core of the DFL complaint is about the questionably legal tactic of coordination by hiring a third-party vendor group between a campaign and a political action committee. In the complaint, embedded within the post below, it's clear that the PAC isn't one associated or funded by the NRA. All of the money sent to the MN for Freedom PAC comes from the Republican Attorneys General Association.
We cited work of the third party vendor group to demonstrate past work by the vendor and an employee to coordinate, rather than to connect the current action with the NRA's PAC, an earlier client. [end note]
We have to hand it to the Jim Schultz for AG and the Republican Attorneys General Association: when they apparently hired a crew to flout Minnesota campaign finance law, they signed on nation crew with in-depth experience.
Or so it appears when we look into names of talent and firms listed in the complaint (embedded below) that's at the core of the Alex Derosier story for Forum News that we read in the Rochester Post Bulletin, DFL claims 'brazen' campaign finance violation by GOP attorney general candidate Jim Schultz.
Derosier reports "an individual associated with the Schultz campaign bought anti-Ellison ads on Minnesota TV stations on behalf of Minnesota for Freedom" but he doesn't tell readers who that individual might be, though the DFL press release states:
Both Jim Schultz’s campaign and the independent expenditure group Minnesota for Freedom have purchased advertisements using Steve Syckes as an agent, violating campaign finance law stating clearly that independent expenditures must be “made without the express or implied consent…[of] any candidate or any candidates’ principal campaign committee or agent…”
According to exhibits in the complaint, Syckes bought ad time on behalf of the "American Advocacy & Media Group" for the Jim Schultz for Minnesota Attorney General committee (Exhibit 1). Exhibit 2 has Syckes signing off for the agency Red Eagle Media on behalf of Minnesota for Freedom, the PAC.
Being a poor country blogger, Bluestem though we'd ask Mr. Google if Syckes, Red Eagle Media and the American Advocacy & Media Group had ever been involved in this sort of alleged mischief in the past.
A few footprints appeared in the sands of time.
Back in 2020, Kevin Dugan and Daniel Nass reported for the Daily Beast in The NRA and the Trump Campaign Appear to Be Flouting Election Laws. Again:
Documents show that the NRA’s new anti-Biden ad emerged from the same web of firms involved in potentially illegal coordination in 2016 races.
In a recent ad bankrolled by the National Rifle Association, two masked men chase a woman through a parking lot to her gray sedan. She locks the doors and scrambles to grab her gun from the car’s console. A voiceover kicks in: “Joe Biden would take her rights away.” The gun dissolves into thin air, just as the driver’s side window shatters.
The ominous 30-second spot, called “Carjack,” aired more than 10,000 times in swing districts across Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, and Wisconsin during a two-week period in late August and early September. The NRA paid more than $4.1 million for the ad to run during shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The View.
During that time, re-election ads for President Donald Trump that had been playing as early as May effectively stopped. In some cases, the president’s ads—which became less frequent on all national airwaves during this period—started up again days after the NRA’s ad buy ended.
It’s probably not a coincidence. The NRA and the Trump campaign placed those ads through two companies that appear separate on paper, but reporting by The Trace indicates they are affiliates of National Media Research, Planning and Placement, an influential conservative firm in Alexandria, Virginia. We identified four National Media employees whose names or signatures also appear on recent documents related to the shell companies. In fact, the three firms are so closely linked that they share a phone number. Earlier reporting by The Trace showed that National Media was at the center of a similar ad-buying strategy in 2016.
National Media is a powerhouse in the business of political strategy, placing ads and analyzing demographics for prominent Republicans and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It is also the parent of a group of affiliated shell companies.
Red Eagle Media, which buys ads for the NRA, is one of those affiliates, according to Virginia business records, which identify the business as an “assumed or fictitious name” of National Media. Another National Media-connected vendor, Harris Sikes Media, is buying ad time on behalf of Trump. Like the other shell companies, they appear at first glance to have no relation to National Media. But records show that Red Eagle and Harris Sikes share not only a phone number, but several staffers with National Media.
Red Eagle’s contracts are signed by Steve Syckes, an accountant at National Media, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) documents show. Harris Sikes’ business records filed in Virginia last year bear the signature of Robin D. Roberts, National Media’s current president. National Media’s CFO, Jonathan Ferrell, signed some of this year’s contracts for Trump campaign ads as an authorized representative for Harris Sikes. And Ben Angle—whom The Trace has previously linked with Red Eagle during the 2016 campaign—is listed as the contact for Harris Sikes.
What’s more, documents show that National Media is headquartered at 817 Slaters Lane in Alexandria, Virginia, while Red Eagle is located across a parking lot at 815 Slaters Lane. Paperwork filed by Harris Sikes lists both of those addresses, as well as the Fairfax, Virginia, address of a lawyer who has represented all three firms.
815 Slaters Lane is the address listed for Red Eagle Media on page 11 of the DFL complaint, in Exhibit 2, which carries Mr. Syckes' signature. There's more in the DB article:
. . .While National Media was at the center of the 2016 strategy, another company, American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), worked on behalf of the Trump campaign, FCC documents showed. Ferrell, the National Media CEO, signed contracts on behalf of affiliates working for both the NRA and Trump. These middlemen companies placed ads that played on the same stations during the same shows and were aimed at the same audience, according to thousands of pages of FEC and FCC documents reviewed by The Trace at the time. . . .
Well jeepers, dear readers, that American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG) sure does resemble that "American Advocacy & Media Group" working for the Jim Schultz for Minnesota Attorney General committee in Exhibit 1. How coincidental.
A search of the Virginia State Corporation Commission Clerk's Information System shows that American Media & Advocacy Group is located at the Slater Street address. We didn't find the "American Advocacy & Media Group" in the VASOS database, that of the MNSOS, or anywhere.
Open Secrets' Anna Massoglia went over much of the same ground in 2018's Trump 2020 campaign used a shell company to pay ad buyers at the center of alleged illegal coordination scheme with NRA.
And back in 2016? Betsy Swan included much of the same material in Trump’s Already Part of the D.C. Swamp, Whether He Knows It or Not for the Daily Beast.
Of course, American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG) and American Advocacy & Media Group might not have anything to do with each other, other than that guy.
And it could be perfectly a-okay.
Given the involvement of the NRA with an earlier National Media adventure, Bluestem is grateful to Schultz campaign spokeswoman Christine Snell's statement to the press that "“This is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Keith Ellison and his far-left DFL cronies to weaponize the CFB in an effort to distract voters . . . "
Yep, "weaponize" is one tired analogy that gace me my laugh of the day.
Here's the PDF of the 106 page DFL complaint, downloaded from where the DFL has placed it.
2022-10-18 DFL complaint to Schultz campaign illegal coordination with PAC uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
Related posts
- Airball; or Mistake of the Day: Schultz biffs self in own test about Minneapolis FBI office special agent
- Fearmongering the news: MNGOP Attorney General candidate confused about crime
Screengrab: National Media/ Red Eagle et al's Steve Syckes, from a vimeo video touting AccountAbility's services for agencies.
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