{"id":19732,"date":"2017-10-12T08:27:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T14:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=19732"},"modified":"2017-10-12T08:27:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T14:27:03","slug":"suit-says-fagg-broke-federal-campaign-finance-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/10\/suit-says-fagg-broke-federal-campaign-finance-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Suit says Fagg broke federal campaign finance laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fagg\"<\/a>

MTN News<\/p>

Yellowstone County District Judge Russell Fagg has been accused of violating federal campaign finance laws.<\/p><\/div>\n

The American Democracy Legal Fund has filed a federal complaint against Yellowstone County District Judge Russell Fagg, alleging that he violated federal campaign finance laws by campaigning for the U.S. Senate without filing for the seat.<\/p>\n

The complaint<\/a>, filed with the Federal Election Commission, contends that while Fagg has not yet filed for office or resigned his seat from the bench, he has actively distributed campaign literature and launched a campaign website with a donation platform.<\/p>\n

It also contends that Fagg has widely discussed his candidacy and touted his endorsements while attacking the current officeholder, Sen. Jon Tester, in public statements typically reserved for actual challengers.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussell Fagg is running a shadow campaign, breaking federal election law, and violating Montana\u2019s judicial ethical guidelines,\u201d\u00a0said Brad Woodhouse of\u00a0ADLF. \u201cHe\u2019s made it crystal clear that he\u2019s running for U.S. Senate and he should immediately step down from the bench and register as a candidate so that Montanans get the transparency in this election that they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

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According to the complaint, Fagg announced in June that he would resign from the bench this fall. At the time, he established the Russ Fagg Senate Exploratory Committee and began distributing printed fliers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>The complaint says he also has attended a number of political events, including a Montana Republican Party gathering at the Billings Petroleum Club, where he said, \u201cI certainly would appreciate your support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unmistakable from these public comments that Fagg has decided to run for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in Montana,\u201d the complaint states. \u201c(He) has clearly exceeded the threshold for candidacy and is operating a shadow campaign that deprives the public of information about his campaign contributions and expenditures.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Fagg could not immediately be reached for comment\u00a0on Wednesday, his website<\/a> said he will announce the results of his exploratory committee and Montana\u2019s U.S. Senate race\u00a0on Saturday\u00a0at\u00a04 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 20 years as a judge, Russ Fagg has seen just about every form of human suffering come before his court,\u201d his website states. \u201cFrom families breaking up to young people turning to a life of crime, almost all cases trace their roots to the same cause \u2014 poverty and economics.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontana needs more jobs. That\u2019s why Russ is considering a run for the U.S. Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Democracy Legal Fund has filed a federal complaint against Yellowstone County District Judge Russell Fagg, alleging that he violated federal campaign finance laws by campaigning for the U.S. Senate without filing for the seat. The complaint, filed with the Federal Election Commission, contends that while Fagg has not yet filed for office or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":19733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[6349,3307,3084,2390],"class_list":["post-19732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-american-democracy-legal-fund","tag-federal-election-commission","tag-jon-tester","tag-russell-fagg","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19735,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19732\/revisions\/19735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}