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Activists Threatening and Trying to Bribe Senator Collins and Staff Over Kavanaugh Vote

Activists Threatening and Trying to Bribe Senator Collins and Staff Over Kavanaugh Vote

One person “told a 25-year-old female staff member at one of Ms. Collins’s Maine offices that he hoped she would be raped and impregnated.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ8QolzJVxc

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a notorious moderate in the upper chamber and one not scared to go against the Republican Party. This is why people have been pushing her to vote against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but some have gone too far.

Some people have threatened and wished rape upon her female staff members while others have raised money to defeat her if she doesn’t vote against Kavanaugh. Collins claims that is bribery and she may be correct.

Harassment

From The Hill:

“We’ve had some very abusive callers. …We’ve had some very vulgar calls and sort of harassing the staff,” Steve Abbot, Collins’s chief of staff, told a Maine TV station.

The TV station obtained voicemails being left at Collins’s offices, including one caller who brought up a 2003 email where Kavanaugh suggested cutting a paragraph out of a draft op-ed that characterized Roe v. Wade as widely accepted among legal scholars as settled law.

“Have you seen the emails …where he talked about Roe v. Wade not being settled law. He [bleeped] lied to you? How [bleeped] naive do you have to be?” the caller in the voicemail says.

The New York Times reported that Collins’s office “received about 3,000 coat hangers” while other people dressed themselves like those in The Handmaid’s Tale and demonstrated outside of her private home.

It gets worse. Collins’s spokeswoman Annie Clark gave the NYT letters and phone messages. One person “told a 25-year-old female staff member at one of Ms. Collins’s Maine offices that he hoped she would be raped and impregnated.”

Bribery

Liberal activists started a crowdfunding campaign that has raised over $1 million to give to Collins’s opponent in 2020.

Okay, that sounds reasonable, right? Except for the fact that the money will only go to the opponent if Collins votes against Kavanaugh. That is where the bribery allegation comes into play.

The editorial board at The Wall Street Journal wrote:

The fine print makes clear the quid pro quo: “Your card will only be charged if Senator Susan Collins votes for Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.” To avoid the money bomb, all Ms. Collins must do is vote “no.”

It isn’t clear this is even legal. We’re all for citizens exercising their free-speech rights, including campaign donations, for or against political candidates. But federal law defines the crime of bribery as “corruptly” offering “anything of value” to a public official, including a Member of Congress, with the intent to “influence any official act.” The crowdfunders in this case are offering something of value—withholding funds from her opponent—in return for a Supreme Court confirmation vote.

“I have had three attorneys tell me that they think it is a clear violation of the federal law on bribery,” Ms. Collins says. “Actually, two told me that; one told me it’s extortion.”

She adds that her office hasn’t “made any kind of decision” about whether to refer the matter to prosecutors. But her astonishment at the strategy is clear: “It’s offensive. It’s of questionable legality. And it is extraordinary to me that people would want to participate in trying to essentially buy a Senator’s vote.”

The Washington Post contacted an ethics expert about the situation and explained “that it may very well violate federal bribery statutes, which prohibit giving or offering anything of value to government officials in exchange for any acts or votes.”

Campaign Legal Center Senior Director Adav Noti told the publication he believes it’s illegal: “I think they’re playing a game to avoid the literal application of the bribery statute. They have structured the campaign in a way that the action they will do if she does what she wants is that they will refund the money but that seems to be a fictional distinction. It still seems like they’re saying if you don’t do what we want we will spend $1 million and that strikes me as just as much as an inducement as saying we’ll give you $1 million if you do what we want.”

I mean, I don’t why Noti said “it still seems” or why other organizations don’t consider it bribery. It’s in black and white in the fine print! If Collins doesn’t vote against Kavanaugh, the activists will send the money to her opponent: “Your card will only be charged if Collins votes for Kavanaugh’s confirmation.”

[Featured image via YouTube]

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Comments

amatuerwrangler | September 12, 2018 at 4:52 pm

They might be in danger of cutting their own throats: If Collins does not vote to confirm, for whatever reason she might have, it will be assumed that she yielded to the threat. And doing that will only give an opponent in 2020 a good campaigning point: she yields to threats regarding funding, that her vote is for sale.

At this point she almost has to vote to confirm.

Collins has only herself to blame. If she were a true conservative and not an opportunistic RINO, she wouldn’t be such an easy mark.

    maxmillion in reply to MTED. | September 12, 2018 at 11:21 pm

    Not really. If she were hard right she wouldn’t be there at all, because she would have lost long ago, and there’d be a hard left democrat in her place. Be thankful that we nominally have her, (1) to count being a Republican when tallying who the majority party will be, and (2) for some of the votes that go our way. William F Buckley always stressed that we need to vote for and keep the most conservative candidates we can who are able to win. She’s the best we can do in Maine.

Why do prosecutors have to wait for her office to refer the matter to them?

Aren’t they capable of investigating on their own?!

Come on, AG Sessions … start the ball rolling.

    tom_swift in reply to The Packetman. | September 12, 2018 at 5:47 pm

    Maybe because the A.G. can see that there’s no case here, no matter how many pundits say there “may” be a case.

    Our laws are just too pervasive and too damn complicated when not even the people who eat, live and breathe this stuff can’t tell if something’s a crime or not, and have to leave it at a “may be.”

      Matt_SE in reply to tom_swift. | September 12, 2018 at 6:09 pm

      I would like to see a muscular response nonetheless, although I think you’re full of crap on there not being a case.

        tom_swift in reply to Matt_SE. | September 12, 2018 at 7:54 pm

        Fair enough. And what do you think the case actually is?

        N.B.—Just saying “bribery” doesn’t make a case. Unsupported accusations are characteristic of the looney Left, but are unseemly at best when made by adults.

      The Packetman in reply to tom_swift. | September 12, 2018 at 7:20 pm

      When has the lack of a case ever stopped a prosecutor who was hell-bent on making life difficult for someone?

      If we’re going to constantly be accused of ‘weaponizing’ the government, I damn sure want to be accused of over-doing it.

        tom_swift in reply to The Packetman. | September 12, 2018 at 7:56 pm

        That would be government by harassment. And while that may have its place (and obviously does, when people like Lois Lerner are employed), I’d like to see something a bit more substantial here.

. . . and one not scared to go against the Republican Party.

In his 1930 autobiography, A Roving Commission, Winston Churchill recounts an incident in 1902, during a dinner with some other young M.P.s.

That night we were to have Mr [Joseph] Chamberlain as our dinner guest. ‘I am dining in very bad company,’ he observed, surveying us with a challenging air. We explained how inept and arrogant the action of the Government had been. How could we be expected to support it? ‘What is the use,’ he replied, ‘of supporting your Government only when it is right? It is just when it is in this sort of pickle that you ought to have come to our aid.’

If you care at all about women’s choice vote no on Kavanaugh, don’t be a dumb b***h. F**k you also”

I don’t think that tactic is part of “How to Win Friends, and Influence People.”

“the money will only go to the opponent if Collins votes against Kavanaugh”

That’s exactly backwards. They said that if she voted against him that they’d return the money to the donors.

It’s simple. a) It clearly violates the law on bribery. (Rather than extortion.) b) No one cares.

And I don’t care until someone in authority makes a show of caring. No one bat an eyebrow when a certain celebrity publicly pledged a couple of million concerning a prior vote. No one is batting an eyebrow now. Until it is proven that the law will be applied, the entire issue is a farce.

    tom_swift in reply to JBourque. | September 12, 2018 at 7:50 pm

    It clearly violates the law on bribery.

    It does? And “clearly”, no less?

    Senator X votes a certain way. Citizen Y, approving of that vote, would like to see more votes of which he approves in future, so he donates to X’s re-election campaign to help ensure that.

    Meanwhile, Citizen Z, not so wild about X’s vote, donates to a wannabee’s campaign, hoping to replace Senator X in the next election.

    Neither Citizen Y or Z are doing anything illegal or particularly unethical by making these contributions.

    Now, if Citizen Z plans to donate to wannabee’s campaign if Senator X votes a certain way (as above), but tells Senator X that he plans to do so . . . does that “clearly” turn campaign contributions into bribery?

      Citizen Z tells Senator X that she, Citizen Z, has over one million dollars that will be donated to Senator X’s opponent, but Z is willing to exchange not donating this money, and returning it to the original donors giving the money to Z herself, if Senator X provides Z with something of value: voting not to confirm President T’s horrible Supreme Court nominee.

      Citizen Z has offered Senator X something of value in exchange for altering X’s official acts of office in the legislative branch. This is not any better than if Corporation G offered ten million dollars, or Foreign Nation C offered five million, for votes on different matters, for or against a particular bill or nominee or treaty.

      However, because Citizen Z did not threaten to beat up Senator X if she does not vote against the horrible nominee, it is not extortion.

Yeah, yeah.
The world is going to end … again

EMBRACE THE HORROR

Leftists are thugs. Who knew? And, they really know how to win over hearts and minds to their side.

Does anyone have a date for the confirmation vote?

    clintack in reply to snowshooze. | September 12, 2018 at 10:00 pm

    September 20th (next Thursday) for the committee vote.

    The “following week” for the full Senate vote. So that would put it no later than the 27th, most likely.

      Thanks!
      Last night I had a call from a Lisa Murkowski Volunteer trying to find out what I thought about Kavanaugh, and should she support the appointment.
      I played her like a fish until she hung up in disgust.
      First, I informed her that Murkowski is a Democrat.
      That wasn’t welcomed.
      Later, I asked her is she was 25 or so, and she stated she was somewhere in her 60’s…
      I commented that I thought it was odd anyone could live that long and still not know anything.
      Oh, I also did bring up the point that I do charge for consulting fees, and we had to take care of the monetary arrangements before I submitted my professional opinion…
      It was about then she lost it and just hung up.

    Not soon enough.

I was waiting for the word “extortion.” I think that’s a better description of the scheme. It would be a “bribe” if Collins was promised the money for the “correct” vote.

I think this was written backward:

Okay, that sounds reasonable, right? Except for the fact that the money will only go to the opponent if Collins votes against Kavanaugh. That is where the bribery allegation comes into play.

I think you meant “for” instead of “against.”

Well, that’s potentially 44,000+ criminal violations for the FEC and DOJ to prosecute.

This is an easy way to pull funds from the progressives that were stupid enough to do this. Attempted bribery. Charge them, FINE them 1000% (10x) the amount pledged, and use the funds to funds the Border Wall. There’s $10 million plus right there.

THAT will drive the progressives NUTS.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a notorious moderate aka RINO.

I realize that now that the money has been pooled into a single source, it wouldn’t be legal to contribute all of that to Collins’ opponent, but it’s not really the point. It makes a mockery of the law that purportedly prevents a corporation from making the exact same offer for this or a different case.

Can’t remember where I saw it, but it’s my understanding that Collins has never voted against ANY SCOTUS nominee, regardless of who nominated them