A former political operative with the National Right to Work Committee who was involved with the 2008 and 2012 Ron Paul presidential campaigns has accused the anti-union group of running a sprawling off-the-books mass-mailing operation that violated state campaign finance laws and is at odds with the group’s statements to the IRS.

Dennis Fusaro, the former NRTWC operative, sent a lengthy letter to NRTWC board members on Thursday, demanding they “clean up” what he says was illegal activity. Fusaro’s primary allegation is that the organization was using its resources to design, write, print and mail letter campaigns on behalf of numerous conservative Iowa state candidates, and that top officials of the group knew it. The assistance was not reported as contributions to the candidates in Iowa filings, Fusaro wrote in his letter and OpenSecrets Blog confirmed.

NRTWC is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization and is allowed to participate in some political activity, but must disclose it on annual 990 reports filed with the IRS. Both NRTWC and its affiliated Mid-America Right to Work Committee denied, on their 2010 forms, having been involved in politics. According to tax experts contacted by OpenSecrets Blog, if the allegations made by Fusaro are true, the activity should have been reported, and if it was intentionally kept off the tax forms, the group could lose its tax-exempt status or face criminal charges.

NRTWC officials did not reply to numerous phone and email messages from OpenSecrets Blog over two days seeking response.

In his letter to NRTWC board members, Fusaro also attached a printout of an email that appears to indicate an organization staffer used his office email account to send other staffers copies of mailings for various Iowa candidates. Fusaro also provided to OpenSecrets Blog a copy of a separate email exchange in which he appears to discuss with top NRWTC officials a scolding he received from another staffer for pulling employees paid by the anti-union group from an Iowa senator’s campaign — without consulting the candidate first. The other staffer also criticizes Fusaro for failing to coordinate mass mailings with another candidate.

Fusaro declined to comment beyond his letter, but in it, he tells board members that he is contacting them because of “events in Montana, involving shenanigans of Christian LeFer and former NRTWC Director of Government Affairs Dimitri Kesari.” LeFer operated a group called American Tradition Partnership that Montana election officials are investigating for coordinating mailings with candidates.

“I urge you to clean up your own house before the bad guys do it for you,” Fusaro writes in his letter, highlighting the actions of NRTWC Executive Director Mark Mix in particular. Fusaro does not ask for any more specific remedy in the letter.

Fusaro writes that “the ends do not justify the means … Politics is not simply the adjudication of power. It is about serving our Lord Jesus Christ. I know I have failed in this. It is time you recognize that your management leadership has done so, too.”

OpenSecrets Blog left NRTWC officials, including Mix, numerous phone and email messages attempting to get response to Fusaro’s letter. They did not reply.

Earlier allegations by Fusaro were broadly substantiated. He had worked for the national organization and then was executive director of Iowans for Right to Work Committee until 2011, when he left the group after a dispute with Kesari and others. Last August, Fusaro provided OpenSecrets.org with an email exchange between top Ron Paul 2012 campaign officials and an Iowa political operative which appeared to show them negotiating over how much money to pay Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorensen (R) for his endorsement in the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

Shortly before the caucuses, Sorenson switched his support from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to Paul, sparking complaints from Bachmann’s campaign that he had been paid to make the switch. Sorensen denied it at first. But following publication of the emails and an ethics investigation, Sorenson resigned from office last month, acknowledging accepting large payments from the Bachmann campaign, and other payments that he could not explain. He also acknowledged having taken a check for $25,000 given to him by Dimitri Kesari, a political consultant for the Paul campaign who had previously worked as the director of government affairs for NRTWC.

The check, which Sorenson said he never cashed, was drawn on an account belonging to a jewelry store that Kesari’s wife owns. Included on the email chain discussing Sorenson was Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager and grandson-in-law, who now serves as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s (R-Ky.) campaign manager.

The allegations

Fusaro’s first, and most specific, complaint is that in 2010, Sorenson (pictured at left) was provided with a plane ticket worth at least $1,000 to fly to a seminar in Corpus Christi, Texas. The ticket was allegedly paid for by Alina Severs, a registered lobbyist in Iowa, whom Fusaro said was an employee of Mid-America Right to Work. Severs bought the ticket on the instruction of Kesari, Fusaro writes. She did not respond to an email asking for comment. Kesari also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In the letter, Fusaro says he brought this to the attention of Mix and Doug Stafford, NRTWC’s vice president at the time, because he thought it was a violation of state ethics laws.

“Mr. Mix refused to deal with it and told me not to tell him about these sorts of things,” Fusaro writes.

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Stafford, who went on to serve as chief-of-staff for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and is now executive director of RAND PAC, declined to comment and referred questions to NRTWC.

According to Iowa law, public officials cannot accept gifts from lobbyists except under certain specific conditions. One possible exception is if the official was traveling to an event as a speaker. Sorenson did not return an email for comment.

Fusaro also claims that in 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles, NRTWC made contributions to numerous state legislative candidates that were only partially reported or not reported at all. Fusaro writes that the contributions consisted of material goods and labor, specifically:

Paid organization field staff working on the orders of NRTWC officials to assist candidates in Iowa and other states.

Mass mailings written, organized, printed and mailed by NRTWC staff, using NRTWC equipment, in close coordination with candidates.

Use of a printing facility owned by the organization in Iowa in 2010, later relocated to Indiana, under Kesari’s direct oversight, and at the direction of Mix and Stafford.

The allegations are bolstered by the separate email exchange Fusaro provided to OpenSecrets.org. Fusaro contacted Mix on Oct. 5, 2010, to complain about an email Kesari had sent to him. In that email, Kesari dresses down Fusaro for a variety of reasons, including apparently using too much paper, buying a high-speed printing machine and other issues. At the end, Kesari writes:

“One other concern Doug [Stafford] and I discussed is you pulling full-time staff off [Iowa State Rep.] Jarad Klein’s race – we have worked with him for two years and he is doing our whole program. He is one of our guys and will probably win but pulling staff from his race and not even calling the candidate is not how we have dealt with him or any other candidate we have ever worked with.”

Kesari then complains that another Iowa state candidate, Jane Jech “is not doing most of our mail program. What happened?” He asks Fusaro for a full list of which pieces of mass mail the organization will be preparing for which candidates. The email signature at the bottom lists Kesari as “Director of Government Affairs, National Right to Work Committee.”

In the exchange, Mix responds to Fusaro by forwarding an email he sent to Stafford in which he tells Stafford to have Kesari “stand down” against Fusaro.

Klein and Jech, the candidates, were contacted by OpenSecrets.org but did not respond. A review of Iowans for Right to Work’s 2010 campaign finance filings shows no donations — monetary or in-kind — to them. Similarly, there were no disclosed donations to candidates whose names appear in connection with what appear to be mailers prepared by NRTWC, in an attachment to Fusaro’s letter to the board.

Iowa law doesn’t prohibit corporations — including nonprofits — from intervening in a race, but their expenditures cannot be coordinated with candidates. If a candidate is involved, his or her campaign must repay the corporation for its work. Iowa campaign records don’t show any independent expenditures made by Iowa Right to Work, or any reimbursements by candidates in 2010.

Fusaro’s final complaint is that NRTWC failed to disclose any of this political activity on the 990 tax forms it provided to the IRS.

Line 3 of the form asks: “Did the organization engage in any direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office?” In 2010, both NRTWC and Mid-America Right to Work, which operated the Iowa incarnation of the organization, checked “no”.

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According to experts consulted by OpenSecrets.org, if Fusaro’s descriptions are correct and the emails he provided are legitimate, the question should have been answered differently. “That’s clearly political intervention under IRS rules,” said Donald Tobin, a professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. Tobin said the consequences for incorrectly reporting political activity vary widely depending on what the intent was. “If it’s an honest mistake, the IRS usually contacts you and says, ‘What’s going on?'” he said. “But if it’s a purposeful attempt to defraud there could be serious ramifications. You could have everything from, ‘Please fix your form,’ to losing your tax-exempt status, or in really egregious cases having real criminal penalties.” Frances R. Hill, a law professor at the University of Miami who specializes in tax and finance law, agreed with Tobin’s assessment. The key deciding factor, she said, could be whether the organizations’ activity could be classified as “lobbying,” which 501(c)(4) groups are permitted to do and which doesn’t have to be reported as political work. “Based on what the allegations are, it looks like politics, and even if it’s a state race it has to be reported to the IRS,” she said. Follow Russ on Twitter: @russchoma Images: Kent Sorenson, via Flickr user Gage Skidmore



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