A sign for the Department of Justice hangs in the press briefing room at the Justice Department in Washington on April 18, 2019. (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)

FEC Data Show Most Department of Justice Employees Gave to Liberal Groups, Clinton

By Mark Tapscott

WASHINGTON—All but a tiny fraction of donors listing the Department of Justice (DOJ) as their employer between 2015 and 2019 gave to liberal activist groups and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to The Epoch Times’ analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) data.

A total of 1,252 unique donors made 17,103 itemized contributions during the five-year period, according to the FEC, with Act Blue, the liberal funding pass-through organization, being the recipient of choice for 56 percent (706) of them.

The Act Blue donors made 4,809 itemized contributions totaling $110,317, with an average of $23 each.

Act Blue describes itself as “a powerful online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, progressive organizations, and nonprofits.” A spokesman for Act Blue didn’t respond to a request from The Epoch Times for comment.

Clinton, who was upset by President Donald Trump, her Republican opponent in the 2016 presidential contest, received 2,824 contributions from 414 individuals, the second-highest total of individual DOJ workers.

These DOJ Clinton supporters’ contributions totaled $493,081, for an average donation of $175 each, during the 2016 campaign period.

By comparison, 43 DOJ workers—3.4 percent of the total number of contributing employees—donated just under $15,000 to Trump, with an average of $101 per donation.

In other words, there were almost 10 times as many Clinton donors as Trump donors among those who listed DOJ as their employer during the 2016 campaign.

The 1,252 contributing employees who marked DOJ as their employer represent 1.1 percent of the department’s 113,114 employees, virtually all of whom are career civil servants.

U.S. presidents must depend upon a workforce of 2 million career federal employees to carry out the agenda voters elected them to implement.

But Trump’s challenge may be particularly acute as a result of the deep apparent bias against him within DOJ. For example, so many of his policies are being challenged in federal courts. The president must depend upon DOJ attorneys to represent his policies in courtrooms.

When a particular agency is trying to implement a president’s policy that’s being challenged in the courts, it’s DOJ officials who decide whether or how vigorously to litigate the case.

Some exit polls from 2016 voting showed that Trump received strong support among military personnel and veterans. But an Oct. 26, 2016, analysis by The Hill of FEC data on contributions of $200 or more by federal workers at 14 agencies showed a dramatically different pattern:

“Throughout his campaign, Trump has portrayed himself as a strongman who would toughen up America’s defenses—both militarily and at the border—and who would take care of veterans. It’s probably no coincidence, therefore, that Trump performed best in donations among employees of three agencies: Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs,” The Hill reported.

“But even employees of these more Trump-friendly agencies have overwhelmingly contributed to Clinton’s campaign. From Defense employees, Trump received 341 donations for $43,575. Clinton got 2,392 donations for $225,560, giving her 84 percent of the money. From Homeland Security employees, Clinton got 90 percent of the donations, and from Veterans Affairs, she took 88 percent,” The Hill said.

The Hill’s results showed the same pattern, saying, “Employees at DOJ, which investigated Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State, gave Clinton 97 percent of their donations. Trump received $8,756 from DOJ employees compared with $286,797 for Clinton. From IRS employees, Clinton received 94 percent of donations.”

A Jan. 15, 2019, analysis by The Washington Post found that “of the 43 densest [congressional] districts—those with estimated federal employee totals making up at least 3 percent of the population—20 voted for Trump and 23 for Hillary Clinton. Of the three districts with the heaviest densities of federal employees (all in Virginia and Maryland), Clinton won two.”

But “among those districts with more than 3 percent of the population employed by the federal government that don’t include military bases, Clinton won four of five,” the Post said.

The pattern of bias within DOJ was even more pronounced among donors to party committees. Forty-three DOJ workers contributed more than $119,000 to Democratic Party committees at the federal, state, and local levels, with an average contribution of $759 each.

These donations included the Democratic National Committee and several of its sub-units, as well as 10 state party committees and five county party committees, including the three close-in jurisdictions to the nation’s capital, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax and Arlington counties in Virginia.

Republican strategist Brian Darling said that, as a District of Columbia resident, he was “not at all surprised that the Department or Justice is loaded with Democratic Party supporters much like the people populating the District. The idea of the Deep State is not a fallacy, because there is strong ideological support for Democrats within this Republican Administration. President Trump should never be under the impression that his own Department of Justice will treat Democrats and Republicans the same.”

Contributions by DOJ employees to Republican committees were sparse, with 72 totaling $5,302 in contributions by 21 individuals at an average of $74 each. All but 15 of these contributions went to the Republican National Committee, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee getting 10.

Clinton’s main Democratic primary opponent in 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was the recipient of 102 contributions from 17 DOJ workers, for a total of $9,938 at an average of $97 each.

Contact Mark Tapscott at Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc