Has anything in the world ever been more predictable than this?
Former Attorney General Bill Barr is coming to the defense of No Labels and their longshot third party effort.
In a Wednesday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Barr accused Democrat operatives of potentially breaking the law in response to a complaint filed by No Labels with the Department of Justice describing retaliatory tactics against members and efforts to keep them from making state ballots, an already complicated and costly effort for third parties.
The No Labels complaint describes an alleged “conspiracy to use retaliation, fear, intimidation, and even threats of violence” to keep the group off of ballots.
No Labels provided accounts of threats and phone calls from Democrat operatives as evidence of their claims.
“Although I am a committed Republican and not part of No Labels’ effort, I believe the campaign to disenfranchise the group is profoundly wrong. Poll after poll shows American voters want a choice beyond Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Barr wrote about the situation.
If the accusations are true, he argued, then they amount to an attack on voter rights, an issue many Democrats have made central to their platforms amidst Trump’s constant talk of supposed voter fraud.
“Imagine what the progressive left would say if there were a campaign under way, with at least tacit support from the White House, to prevent Americans from registering to vote,” he wrote. “The current effort to block No Labels’ ballot access is as outrageous as taking away someone’s right to vote.”
No Labels is a Republican stalking horse effort so of course Barr would be supportive. He hates Democrats way more than he hates Trump and the Republicans, even now.
Here’s what the lawsuit is actually about:
For months, the centrist group No Labels has stockpiled cash and diligently worked to secure ballot access for a potential third-party presidential bid, striking fear among allies of President Joe Biden that the effort could siphon away votes and hand the White House to Donald Trump.
Now, with a rematch between Biden and Trump looking likely, two Democratic-aligned groups this week filed campaign finance complaints, hoping to crimp No Labels’ pipeline of campaign cash and force the group to follow the same rules as formal political parties.
The complaints, filed by the groups End Citizens United and Accountable.US, are part of a broader Democratic effort to ramp up legal scrutiny and elicit public scorn for No Labels as it teases a possible White House run by an as-of-yet unannounced ticket that many Democrats worry will play electoral spoiler.
“We are continuing to work every single avenue with our partners to hold (No Labels) accountable legally, to expose them publicly and to make sure they are playing by the same rules as everyone else,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United. “I don’t think it’s any secret that No Labels is a threat to our democracy if they run a third-party (candidate). That’s going to siphon off votes from President Biden and reelect Donald Trump.”
In a statement, No Labels on Wednesday disputed any suggestion that the group had done anything improper and dismissed the complaints as part of a “coordinated conspiracy to subvert No Labels’ ballot access and limit Americans’ choices.”
No Labels regularly promotes itself as a “common sense” centrist organization. But while the group has established No Labels political parties in numerous states, at the national level it is actually registered as a nonprofit with the IRS. That has enabled No Labels to operate with limited transparency while accepting unlimited sums from an anonymous set of donors — a source of financing often referred to pejoratively as “dark money.”
If the Democrat-aligned groups are successful, No Labels would not only be compelled to register as a formal political party with the Federal Election Commission, but it would also have its tax-exempt status revoked, be forced to abide by the same donation amount limits as other political parties and be required to reveal its big-money donors.
I don’t know about this cause of action. Maybe No Labels has a point on the legal technicalities. But they are anti-democracy saboteurs who’ve decided to do what they are doing at the worst possible time in order to break the Democrats and they don’t care how they do it. They know that Trump will benefit and that he will destroy democracy as we know it. Defending itself on the basis of “democracy” is a terrible joke.