alliance-fec-artThe Federal Election Commission gave former Sen. Norm Coleman wide berth to spend money raised for his campaign on costs associated with civil lawsuits in which he’s not even a party.

Coleman got the minimum number of commissioners needed (four of six) to side with the more lenient of two draft advisory opinions released last week. One of the dissenters was Cynthia Bauerly, a recent addition who hails from Minnesota.

After promising to do so last December, Coleman finally requested an advisory opinion from the FEC about whether his campaign could pay for expenses arising from several lawsuits and ethics complaints. In civil suits filed in Texas and Delaware, Coleman friend and donor Nasser Kazeminy was accused of secretly funneling money to Coleman via a business transaction. Other complaints charged Coleman with accepting unreported gifts.

FEC spokespersons told the Minnesota Independent that — with the exception of one footnote-tweak regarding funds raised since the election — the commission adopted as its final opinion the language of Draft B, which states:

For the reasons discussed below, the Commission concludes that the Committee may use campaign funds to pay for the following legal services: reviewing the complaints to the Senate Ethics Committee; reviewing ABM’s letter to the FBI; representing Senator Coleman in an FBI investigation of alleged violations of Federal law or rules governing the office of a Senator or the conduct of campaigns; monitoring and representing Senator Coleman in the Texas and Delaware lawsuits; and responding to media inquiries.

The Committee may not, however, use campaign funds to pay for legal services representing Senator Coleman in an FBI investigation of allegations unrelated to Senator Coleman’s campaign or duties as a Federal officeholder.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington slammed the FEC for shrinking from applying federal election law to Coleman’s question and for ignoring CREW’s arguments submitted via the public comment process.

CREW did however applaud one aspect of the opinion: that, in CREW’s view anyway, the FEC was telling Coleman he can’t use funds raised for his post-election recount activities to cover outside lawsuit expenses.

But the commission seemed to go out of its way not to answer that question, re-wording a footnote to read:

This advisory opinion concerns only the use of campaign funds to pay for the requested legal fees and expenses.  Senator Coleman is involved in a continuing recount of the 2008 election. This advisory opinion should not be relied on as allowing the use of recount funds because it does not address the use of recount funds.

Coleman’s own cleverness in wording his original question to the FEC was key to his success before the FEC, CREW charged. In a statement, CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said:

To assert the Commission must put on blinders to avoid addressing any [Federal Election Campaign Act] issue other than the narrowly-tailored one raised by the requestor is irresponsible. It turns the advisory opinion process into a game whereby the requestor can obtain permission to engage in activities – and obtain immunity for doing so — by merely leaving out inconvenient facts.