Democrat Candidate Caught Conspiring to Commit Election Fraud in Pennsylvania

Source: Department of Justice

Washington, D.C. - October 25, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- A federal grand jury sitting in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania returned an indictment today charging two Philadelphia-area political consultants with a scheme to use a political candidate’s campaign funds to make illegal contributions to his opponent’s campaign to secure the opponent’s agreement to drop out of a 2012 congressional primary race.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania made the announcement.

According to the indictment, Donald “D.A.” Jones, 62, of Willingboro, New Jersey, and Kenneth Smukler, 57, of Villanova, Pennsylvania, were charged with conspiracy, causing unlawful campaign contributions and causing the filing of false reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and Jones was charged with making false statements to the FBI, in connection with a falsification scheme involving unlawful contributions to the campaign of former Municipal Court Judge Jimmie Moore, a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2012 Democratic race for Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District. According to the indictment, those payments came from the campaign committee of Moore’s opponent for the purpose of removing Moore from the race. Moore pleaded guilty to the charge of causing false statements to the FEC in connection with this matter on Oct. 2.

As alleged in the indictment, in or about February 2012, Moore withdrew from the primary election pursuant to an agreement with his opponent, who promised $90,000 in campaign funds to be used to repay Moore’s campaign debts. Under the applicable law, a contribution from one authorized campaign to another could not exceed $2,000 for the primary election. Therefore, the $90,000 payment from Moore’s opponent’s campaign to pay Moore’s campaign debts constituted an unlawful campaign contribution.

According to the indictment, the FEC requires campaigns to file periodic reports itemizing the campaign’s contributions and expenditures during the reporting period. However, in order to conceal the unlawful contribution and its source, Moore instructed his campaign manager, Carolyn Cavaness, to create a company whose sole purpose would be to receive the funds from his opponent’s political campaign and repay Moore’s campaign debts. As described in the indictment, those payments were routed through Voter Link Data Systems (Voter Link) and D. Jones & Associates, political consulting companies run by Smukler and Jones.

According to the indictment, the defendants used false invoices to generate a paper trail intended to justify the payments from Moore’s opponent’s campaign committee, and Cavaness, acting at Moore’s direction, used a portion of the money from the opponent’s campaign committee to repay Moore’s campaign debts, including debts to Moore and Cavaness themselves. Cavaness pleaded guilty to the charge of causing false statements to the FEC in connection with this matter on July 25.

According to the indictment, to further conceal the scheme, the defendants willfully caused Moore’s campaign committee to file false reports with the FEC that did not disclose or reference the funds received from his opponent’s campaign committee; did not mention Voter Link or D. Jones & Associates, the companies through which the payments were routed; and falsely listed the same debts owed by Moore’s campaign that had been disclosed on earlier reports, despite the fact that those debts had been repaid using funds from Moore’s opponent’s campaign committee. Likewise, the defendants willfully caused the opponent’s campaign committee to file false reports with the FEC that did not mention the use of campaign funds to repay Moore’s campaign debts. Finally, the indictment alleges that Jones made material false statements to FBI agents investigating this matter, telling them that Cavaness had performed work in exchange for the opponent’s campaign funds that were routed through D. Jones & Associates, when in fact Cavaness never performed any such work.

An indictment is not a finding of guilt. It merely alleges that crimes have been committed. A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The FBI conducted the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Gibson Eric Gibson of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Trial Attorney Jonathan Kravis of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.

Pennsylvania Pastors Network Leader Says Lehigh County Must Stand for Constitutional Law After Judge Rules Cross Must Be Removed from Seal

Source: American Pastors Network

Washington, D.C. - October 8, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- A federal judge last week ruled that a cross must be removed from the Lehigh County seal in Pennsylvania because it is violates the U.S. Constitution, reported Fox News and several other outlets.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the suit on behalf on four Pennsylvania residents, who claimed the cross was offensive. According to Fox News, U.S. District Judge Edward Smith “made it known in his ruling that he was not happy about the decision he had to make but was following the rule of constitutional law, including the establishment clause, which states that Congress may not pass any laws establishing a religion.”

“It is obvious to me that Judge Smith failed to recognize the truth of the United States Constitution and the historical background of our nation and Lehigh County,” said Gary Dull, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network (PPN, www.papastors.net), a state chapter of the American Pastors Network. “The First Amendment of the Constitution states that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…’ Having a cross in the center of the Lehigh County seal is not in any way ‘establishing’ a religion by county founders, leaders or citizens. Therefore, the opinion of Judge Smith is unconstitutional in that it both prohibits the free exercise of people of faith who historically were and are a part of the county and also fails to recognize the Judeo-Christian heritage upon which our nation, of which Lehigh County is a part, was founded.

“In his own statement, the judge said that ‘the court does not believe the current state of law applicable to this case comports with the text of the Establishment Clause,’ and so in the mind of any sensible person, that ends the argument,” added Dull, who is the senior pastor at Faith Baptist Church of Altoona in Blair County. “For the judge to then rule in favor of the plaintiffs is an act of twisting the wording of the First Amendment in an effort to make it say what it does not according to original intent. The citizens of Lehigh County, whether they are religious or not, must stand up for constitutional law if indeed the integrity of the court system is to remain in compliance with the law of the land. America is a nation of law based upon a Constitution that has lasted for nearly two and half centuries and is not based on the whims and opinions of individual citizens. The best thing any judge or citizen can do to maintain the strength of our country is to follow the law of the Constitution, interpret it accordingly and refuse to allow personal opinion, politics, philosophy, desire or pressure from those who oppose the basic principles of our nation to take away from what America has been about from the time of its founding.”

Judge Smith wrote in his ruling that “While the court does not believe the current state of the law applicable to this case comports with the text of the Establishment Clause, the court is not in a position to reject it. The law, as it currently stands, requires that the court rule in favor of the plaintiffs: the inclusion of the cross lacked a secular purpose both when the defendant adopted the seal and when the defendant refused to remove the cross from the seal, and a reasonable observer would perceive the seal as endorsing Christianity.”

Lehigh County will now have to redesign the seal, in use since 1944, which includes a Latin cross near the center, as well as a heart, bison, silos and other imagery. The seal appears on flags, buildings, letterhead and legal documents, as well as the county website.