Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is publicly disowning a pro-Clinton Super PAC that her campaign has close ties with.
“Well I don’t know anything about what you’re saying. I have no knowledge of what they’re doing,” Clinton said on PBS Newshour, speaking about the pro-Clinton Super PAC Correct the Record, which is run by Clinton operative and Media Matters founder David Brock. Clinton was trying to distance herself from the PAC because it is generating headlines for hammering her rivals Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden with opposition research.
Clinton’s claim is similar to the one made by Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz during the 2012 campaign when she said that she had “no idea” whether the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, which accused Mitt Romney of contributing to a woman’s death, was even a pro-Obama super PAC.
But Clinton cannot disown Correct the Record.
Brock’s Correct the Record camp told The Washington Post in May that his PAC aimed to coordinate directly with Hillary’s campaign, exploiting an exception in Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules allows a campaign and a PAC to coordinate and share the same Internet content.
“The FEC rules specifically permit some activity – in particular, activity on an organization’s website, in email, and on social media – to be legally coordinated with candidates and political parties,” said a Correct the Record spokeswoman.
But the FEC has yet to get back to Clinton-World about how this actually works, and whether or not this is actually legal.
Nevertheless, Clinton campaign adviser Karen Finney and Correct the Record president Brad Woodhouse recently shared the exact same talking point on social media.