Judicial Committee Meeting on D’Orazio Petition.
Meeting came to order at 2PM. Ken Krawchuk is the current chair.
15 minutes for the petitioner and the respondent.
D’Orazio. There was an earlier Harlos petition on the Joint Fundraiser. Situation has changed since then.
Issue is Bylaws article 2.4. We were formed in part to nominate a President and a Vice President and support them. We made an agreement with Kennedy. He has since dropped from the race and endorsed Trump. The JFC has publicity showing he now supports Trump. Party is giving a support to Kennedy that it is not giving to Oliver, contrary to the Policy Manual.
Oliver Campaign chair has submitted an amicus brief, saying that the JFC is harming the Oliver campaign. Potential donors are saying that they will not donate to Oliver because there is the JFC.
Hagopian: The disbursals to the Kennedy campaign were not appropriated by the LNC. There is now 670,000 in current liabilities in the financial reports that were not appropriated by the LNC. The agreement violates the bylaws. Hagopian lists a series of points. Eg. We paid $70,000 to Kennedy staffers without LNC approval.
D’Orazio: We have irrefutable evidence of bylaws violations.These are correctible errors. I want the approval overturned. That does not affect state affiliates. The integrity of our party is at stake.
JC questions: Latham: Could the LNC correct the error by voting to approve the agreement. Can this committee decline to hear further appeals? D’Orazio: LNC cannot vote to approve because it violates bylaws.
Discussion: Oliver does not have a matching JFC, which would let him raise more money.
LNC gets money then disburses it. There was a discussion; there are some expenditures that may or may not be JFC related.
There is a discussion as to what D’Orazio asking the JC to do. LNC wants the JC to rule that further petitions on this matter will not be allowed.
D’Orazio mentions a Bylaws section not in his filing. There is an argument as to whether or not it is admissible. Q if violating the Policy Manual is a Bylaws violation.
We reach McArdle: McArdle claims that there have been no changes in the JFC. McArdle claims that she offered a JFC agreement to Oliver via a phone call with Steve Dasbach. She claims that we are completely dependent on Kennedy money through the end of the year; without it we could not have funded Kentucky. She claims that everything is bylaws-valid.
She claims that she does not need LNC approval to disburse funds via the Kennedy Fund. The Perlys event is $4000 not $40,000. There was a typo in our report.
Yeniscavich claims that without Kennedy we could not have paid for Kentucky. She claims we have not paid money to the Trump campaign. JFC has been paying off debts of the Kennedy campaign. Claims that we have legal advice from a series of people with compliance expertise. Says that states have been sent money directly by the JFC.
Jacobs discusses whether a motion is dilatory is up to the body making the decision. Not clear why?
Latham: Does this Committee have the authority to decline to hear future appeals on this issue? He gives examples. McArdle says the JFC can decline to hear an appeal. We do not have an agreement with Trump. We upgraded things, but there was no agreement that Trump would cover the expenses.
Krawchuk: Our rule 7 says we have to have a hearing if we receive an appeal.
Tarnoff: Does article 9 require the LNC to vote on the expenditures.
Hagopian: The budget bylaw has been violated. The budget must be amended first.
Judicial Committee ended the hearing.
“We do not have an agreement with Trump. We upgraded things, but there was no agreement that Trump would cover the expenses.”
Was that a reference to Trump’s convention appearance? In the financial discussion thread it says “Accounts Receivable, which was $51,611 at August 31, has been updated to include the $47,000 the Trump Campaign owes to the LNC to reimburse us for costs incurred at the May National Convention.”
If one was a reference to the other, it does not appear as if the Trump campaign owes the LNC anything.
Yes. They are now saying that it is not a real accounts receivable because there is no agreement in place for Trump to pay, they just want him to.
This also means that they lied to me when I was the Treasurer and told me that the Trump appearance would not cost us any money, and they lied to the membership in the same fashion