APOC staff: certain Pebble foes broke the law

Posted by Elizabeth Bluemink

Posted: June 6, 2009 - 8:01 pm

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On Friday afternoon, my coworker Lisa Demer, who spends a lot of time following big Alaska political scandals, ended up diving into the breaking news that APOC staff issued a harsh opinion finding election law violations by Bob Gillam, Art Hackney, two other individuals and several non-profit groups.

I had the day off and didn't know what was up until I came home late Friday evening and turned on my computer to find scads of e-mails. (Shout out to tipsters: I carry a cell phone!)

APOC staff agreed with 17 of the 18 allegations made by the Pebble Partnership and the Resource Development Council of Alaska, a business trade group, in a detailed complaint. APOC staff recommended maximum statutory penalties against all involved and suggested that the Alaska attorney general open a criminal investigation.

The accused dispute the APOC report. The story quotes their statement that they "are confident that substantial evidence, ignored by APOC staff, will prove that they carefully complied with the law. The staff's conclusions are simply wrong, and we will welcome the opportunity to present the facts in this matter to the Commission for review."

A hearing has been set for mid-June.

Here's the lede of Lisa's story:

Key opponents of the Pebble mine prospect used a sham organization and otherwise hid the source of about $2 million that fueled an initiative last summer to block the mine, Alaska Public Offices Commission staff concluded in a report released Friday.

I notice a lot of commenters are ripping on APOC for not investigating the state for its spending of money related to the "Clean Water" initiative. Other comments say corruption is corruption, no matter who does it.

APOC commissioners did investigate the state's activities involving Measure 4 and last year, forced state regulators to pull down a web site they had created on Measure 4 until they removed some biased statements. However, APOC didn't agree with other allegations, that, for example, Gov. Sarah Palin broke the law when she spoke her opinion on the initiative.

Here are some assertions from the APOC staff report:

* More than half of the $2.9 million dollars that (Alaskans for Clean Water) received came from Gillam by way of (Americans for Job Security). AJS is nothing more than a sham entity created for the sole purpose of allowing people like Gillam to evade campaign disclosure laws. AJS has no purpose other than to cover various money trails all over the country.

* Respondents claim the timing of donations from Gillam to AJS and from AJS to AFCW was purely coincidental, and there was no understanding or coordination between Gillam, AJS and AFCW. This does not seem plausible.

* On June 19, Gillam gave $1 million to AJS, and the very next day AJS gave $750,000 to AFCW. On Friday, July 11, Gillam gave a contributed $500,000 to AJS and, two business days later, on July 15 AJS gave $450,000 to AFCW. On July 22, Gillam gave another $500,000 to AJS, and predictably enough, AJS gave $400,000 to AFCW on August 1. [5] Finally, on August 6 Gillam gave $250,000 directly to AFCW. Staff does not know what happened to the $400,000 of Gillam’s money that was given to AJS but was not forwarded on to AFCW.

* AS 15.13.074(b) states that a “person may not make a contribution anonymously, using a fictitious name, or using the name of another.” Gillam’s contributions that were funneled through (Renewable Resources Coalition) and AJS were either illegal anonymous contributions, illegal contributions in the name of another, or both. The evidence shows that these contributions were pre-arranged and coordinated, and that Gillam made contributions through RRC and AJS for the sole purpose of hiding the fact that he was the source of AFCW’s funds.

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