Obama seeks investigation of pro-Clinton group's ads

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Barack Obama's presidential campaign wants federal regulators to investigate fellow Democrats who are backing Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy, taking intraparty discord to a new level of confrontation. Obama's campaign lawyer, Robert Bauer, filed a complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the pro-Clinton American Leadership Project of violating campaign finance laws by running ads against Obama. The group is largely financed by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and is run by Democratic operatives, many of them based in California and who have past connections to Clinton or her husband. Its organizers say they are abiding by the law and a 2007 Supreme Court ruling. Bauer, in his complaint and in a teleconference with reporters, likened the group to organizations that had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for ad campaigns in the 2004 presidential election. Among them was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked Democrat John Kerry's service in Vietnam and his subsequent anti-war stance. "This organization is a Swift Boat wannabe and it's violating the law in exactly the same way," Bauer said.