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LaRouche in 2004 Press Release FEC Makes A Fool Of Itself Again Washington, D.C.--The Federal Election Commission, adhering, for the moment, to its long-standing political hostility to Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., today preliminarily determined that LaRouche's 2000 campaign committee, must repay $236,692 to the U.S. Treasury, as a result of the audit process for candidates who receive matching funds. In a 5-0 vote the Commission adopted the recommendation of its audit division, which claimed that LaRouche's 2000 campaign overpaid various distribution companies for the use of their facilities and services they provided to the campaign. The reasoning given by the audit staff, and voiced by the Commissioners themselves at today's meeting, bewildered most observers, which is not surprising, considering the personal political animus harbored by the FEC commissioners themselves towards LaRouche. The FEC's determination flies in the face of the FEC's own previous determinations. In its audit of the 1996 Presidential campaign, the FEC raised concerns that LaRouche's campaign committee might have underpaid these same vendors. Seeking to meet the FEC's concerns, LaRouche's 2000 campaign committee adjusted its payments to these vendors upwards. Now the FEC claims LaRouche's campaign paid too much-- a decision which is without known precedent in a town where media and political consultants charge millions of dollars in fees to political candidates and campaigns. LaRouche, who currently leads {all} Democratic Party candidates in the number of individuals contributing to his current campaign, has been the target of the FEC's politically motivated arbitrariness in the past. In 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered the FEC to pay LaRouche matching funds they had illegally denied for his 1992 Presidential campaign. As early as 1982, U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant said it would be "hard to imagine a more abusive visitation of bureaucratic power," than the FEC's treatment of LaRouche. Today's corrupt decision is likely to be overturned just as were the previous FEC attacks on LaRouche. -30-
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