Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 09:14:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: phillies@wpi.edu ("George D. Phillies")
Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Funding Liberty
To: liberty_1st@excell.net, lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com, lpus-misc@dehnbase.org, PALibernet@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Because the light of truth is better than the shadow of delusion.
I have spent the last year researching this account of our last two
Presidential accounts and a great deal of what happened in between.
Our Party has some significant difficulties, which will not go away if we
ignore them.
I do not have any vast secret sources of information. Almost everything
in this book was generally available, or could be had for the asking.
Some of you may recall that the LNC was supposed to investigate parts of
this situation. My prose may be more polished, but a serious
investigation should have uncovered most of what you are about to read.
If you want the future to differ from the past, you need to do something
about it. The people who gave you the events you are about to hear
described are still alive, still active in the Libertarian Party, and
still hard at work trying to make 2004 and 2008 into repeats of 1996 and
2000.
Chapter One
The Chicken Comes Home to Roost
And here is where we begin:
April 21, 2001. The Libertarian Party's National Committee meets. In late
afternoon, close to 4PM, former Party National Secretary John Famularo
passes around the hall, personally handing out copies of an astonishing
memorandum to individual members of the National Committee.
Famularo's memorandum read:
"To: LNC Members and Alternates
From: John D. Famularo
Date: 21 April 2001
Subject: Proposed Contract with America Liberty Foundation, Inc., et al.
Since the LNC is currently contemplating entering into a joint venture
with American Liberty Foundation, Inc., Real Campaign Reform, Inc., and
U.S. Justice Foundation, Inc., and since Perry Willis and Jack Dean are
principals in at least two of these organizations, and since the LNC may
be depending on the veracity of statements from these individuals and may
be assuming that these individuals and others involved in this joint
venture have the same basic motivation for participation as the LNC and
Libertarian Party, I believe that the following information is germane at
this time.
Mr. Willis, the National Director at the time, assured the LNC in early
1995 that any paid work for the Browne campaign had ceased. There is
evidence that Mr. Willis continued to work for the Browe campaign
throughout the balance of 1995 and into 1996 prior to the July 1996
nominating convention, through a mechanism of billing Jack Dean's company,
Dean & Spear for work done by Willis for the Browne campaign. This type
of transaction would not appear on either Browne's or the LNC's FEC
reports. Attached is a copy of an invoice from Perry Willis to Jack Dean
referencing a contract for payments for Willis for work done for the
Browne campaign. There is other evidence available.
It is worthy of note that the hiring of Mr. Den and his company as
contractors to the LNC was done at the urging of Mr. Willis during his
term as National Director.
See Attached."
The attachment was an invoice.
An invoice dated February 28, 1996, 12:11 PM, to Dean, Spear &
Associates of Fullerton, California. An invoice from Perry Willis of
Arlington, Virginia, identified as "Billing for February, 1996,
Browne for President contract"
An invoice for $2000, itemized as:
1. December Letter $500
2. January Letter $500
3. February Letter $500
4. First Prospecting Letter $500
Total: $2,000
The Invoice given to the National Committee was a printed copy of a
computer .pdf file. .pdf is a specific computer format for generating
high-quality printed documents. To my knowledge, Famularo had in his
possession an unsigned electronic file. If there was ever a paper
document bearing signatures, I have yet to find a witness who saw it.
My friends on and near the Libertarian National Committee report that the
LNC's response was quite muted. There was no discussion of the documents
during the LNC meeting. Famularo reports that no one asked him afterward
about the Invoice or his cover memo. In particular, according to Famularo
no one on the LNC asked about the 'additional evidence'. Perhaps LNC
members needed time, more than the few moments before their April 21
meeting began, to recognize what they had been given or compare the
Invoice with their memories of the LNC's rules.
Famularo tells me that on the morning of the meeting he spoke separately
with three high LNC officials, namely National Chair Jim Lark, National
Vice Chair Dan Fylstra, and 2001 National Director Steve Dasbach about the
memo's contents. According to Famularo, one of them didn't immediately
see the issues that the memo raised, a second wanted to hear nothing
unfavorable to Browne, and the third said nothing.
The LNC may not have responded immediately to Famularo's revelations
because his cover letter needed to lin a few dots. The memo notes that
Willis had said that in early 1995 he had stopped working for the Browne
campaign for pay, that there was evidence that Willis had continued to
work during early 1996 for the Browne campaign for pay, and that the
attached invoice shows a billing path to Willis. However, the memo
neglected to remind readers that the attached invoice not only shows the
billing path but the dates for Willis's work, these dates being within the
period in which Willis was supposedly not workingfor the Browne campaign,
and therefore the invoice was direct evidence that 'Willis continued to
work for the Browne campaign...into 1996'.
The cover memo also did not remind readers as to why the discrepancy was
of interest. Since 1982, the LNC's employment policies had forbidden the
National Director to do secret work for a person seeking the Party's
Presidential nomination. The Invoice implies that there were major
breaches of LNC rules by Willis and Harry Browne's 1996 Presidential
Campaign Committee.
Here matters stood for three weeks. Presumably wheels were turning behind
the scenes. To the alert Libertarian public nothing appeared to happen.
My sources say that the National Committee members did not discuss the
memo on their closed mail lists. Most Libertarians, even most Libertarians
who are electronic mailing list readers, apparently never examined the
Invoice, because it was being circulated in an electronic format that is
not generally accessible.
Cast of Characters
Who were the people and groups I just mentioned?
The LNC is Libertarian National Committee, Inc., elected governing body of
the Libertarian Party of the United States. The LNC consists of four
National Officers (Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer), five At-Large
Representatives, and nine Regional Representatives (each of whom has an
Alternate Represenative).
John Famularo is a long-time Pennsylvania activist and outstanding critic
of a clique widely seen as having excessive influence over the Libertarian
Party. On the date shown i the Invoice, Perry Willis was the Libertarian
Party's National Director, the Party's highest-ranking paid employee.
Jack Dean is the Dean of Dean, Spear & Associates, a political consulting
group, and principal of Web Commanders, an internet firm oft associated
with Libertarian campaigns and groups, including the Party National
Committee. Harry Browne was the Party's 1996 and 2000 Presidential
candidate. FEC (Federal Election Commission) filings for late 1995 and
early 1996 show Dean, Spear & Asociates received an average of $1000 a
month from Harry Browne's Presidential Campaign Committee for "consulting"
and other activities.
American Liberty Foundation, Inc. and Real Campaign Reform, Inc. are
organizations apparently formed by Harry Browne or his associates around
the time of the 2000 Presidential campaign. U.S. Justice Foundation, Inc,
is a tax-exempt conservative 501c(3)organization. The proposed joint
venture with the LNC involved fundraising for presently unfiled litigation
against Federal laws regulating campaign and political finance.
TO BE CONTINUED. PLEASE SHARE.
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