The recent indictment of conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza is, in many ways, an unremarkable example of a garden variety “straw donor” prosecution.  The Department of Justice cranks out a steady stream of them.  Even the relatively small dollar amount at issue ($20,000) is not especially unusual. DOJ is aggressive in prosecuting even small reimbursement cases.

What did catch our eye, however, is the way in which the government apparently became aware of the alleged reimbursement scheme. For some time, we have been telling clients that either the FEC, DOJ, or both, would eventually figure out how easy it is to detect straw donor schemes by looking closely at patterns in publicly filed FEC disclosure reports. With just a little bit of digging, including some analysis of geographic, employer, and timing data (ideally mapped against other publicly available data about particular donors), your average fourth grader these days could devise an algorithm to tease out reimbursement schemes from the data.

Sure enough, in the press release that accompanied its indictment of Mr. D’Souza, DOJ touted the fact that “the indictment is the result of a routine review by the FBI of campaign filings with the FEC.”  While we do not yet know the details, we suspect this could be evidence that the FBI is beginning to use data analytic techniques to study FEC reports for patterns. Of course, it is also possible that the agents did this the old fashioned way, by eyeballing the reports and looking for visibly obvious patterns, or by following up on a tip. Some supporters of Mr. D’Souza have more nefarious theories of what led the FBI to focus on him. We shall see.

We wrote not long ago here in Inside Political Law about the use by the Moreland Commission in New York of data analytics to identify patterns in campaign disclosure reports. It’s clear that the era of Big Data has arrived for campaign finance law. Expect to see regulators across the country starting to use simple data analytic techniques to ferret out campaign finance violations from public disclosure reports. Journalists are likely to do the same. Soon enough, there will be an app for that.

Tags: FBI, indictment, reimbursement
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Photo of Robert Kelner Robert Kelner

Robert Kelner is the chair of Covington’s nationally recognized Election and Political Law Practice Group.  He counsels clients on the full range of political law compliance matters, and defends clients in civil and criminal law enforcement investigations concerning political activity. He also leads …

Robert Kelner is the chair of Covington’s nationally recognized Election and Political Law Practice Group.  He counsels clients on the full range of political law compliance matters, and defends clients in civil and criminal law enforcement investigations concerning political activity. He also leads the firm’s prominent congressional investigations practice.

Rob’s political law compliance practice covers federal and state campaign finance, lobbying disclosure, pay to play, and government ethics laws. His expertise includes the Federal Election Campaign Act, Lobbying Disclosure Act, Ethics in Government Act, Foreign Agents Registration Act, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

He is also a leading authority on the arcane rules governing political contributions and marketing activities by registered investment advisers and municipal securities dealers.

Rob’s political law clients include numerous multinational corporations, many of which are household names.  He counsels major banks, hedge funds, private equity funds, trade associations, PACs, political party committees, candidates, lobbying firms, and politically active high-net-worth individuals. He has represented the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and National Republican Senatorial Committee.  He also advises Presidential political appointees on the complex vetting and confirmation process.

As a partner in the firm’s White Collar Defense & Investigations practice group, Rob regularly defends clients in congressional investigations before virtually every major congressional investigation committee.  He also defends corporations and others in investigations by the Federal Election Commission, the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, federal Offices of Inspector General, and the House & Senate Ethics Committees.  He has prepared many CEOs and corporate executives for testimony before congressional investigation panels. He regularly leads the Practicing Law Institute’s training program on congressional investigations for in-house lawyers.  In addition, he is frequently retained to lead internal investigations and compliance reviews for major corporate clients concerning lobbying and campaign finance law issues.

Rob has appeared as a commentator on political law matters on The PBS News Hour, CNBC, Fox News, and NPR, and he has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Legal Times, Roll Call, The Hill, Politico, USA Today, Financial Times, and other publications.

Rob is Chairman of Covington’s Professional Responsibility Committee and a General Counsel of the firm.  He also currently serves as Chairman of the District of Columbia Bar’s Legislative Practice Committee, and he previously was appointed by the President of the American Bar Association to serve on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Election Law.

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