The accusations against Hilltop Public solutions go something like this. They set themselves up in a state, and along with third party and non-profit groups–many of which they create and direct–funnel tens of thousands of dollars from other Democrat groups into specific support for candidate campaigns, well…here’s an example.
Montana – (The) Bullock campaign – as well as Montana Democratic Party, Montana Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood of Montana and the Montana AFL-CIO and its Build Montana political action committee – all retained the services and employees of Hilltop Public Solutions, or its affiliates or other vendors.
The campaign and third-party groups worked “to coordinate, manage, design and distribute campaign material to influence the results of the 2012 Montana election,” the complaint said.
These groups are accused of using Hilltop and its shadows to funnel dark money into and around the Bullock campaign to circumvent spending disclosure laws and limits to get the candidate elected. Think – New Hampshire Citizens for action setting up the NHCAA just to funnel tens of thousands to canvas for Carol Shea Porter, and only Carol Shea-Porter, but darker.
What is ironic about this is that these are exactly the kinds of spending schemes that Jeanne Shaheen claims she wanted to stop after the IRS got caught holding up applications for Tea Party groups in the run up to November 2012 after she wrote to them asking them to do just that. And wouldn’t you know– Hilltop is a donor to the Shaheen campaign.
The question you should be asking as we head into 2014 is not how much did (or will) Hilltop give openly to Jeanne Shaheen it is how much dark money will (or has) found its way through Hilltop fronts to support her campaign.
More Irony? Former NH Congressman Paul Hodes, who used to work for the Shaheen law-firm, got support from Hilltop personnel and one of it’s partners, David Kelley Kieve. (Kieve lives in DC, and went to school in Connecticut.) Kieve did give some of his own money to Hodes for Congress, as is often the case with all the people running this outfit, but his big contribution was to serve as Hodes’ campaign manager in 2007 after his job as the political director for the Edwards campaign in NH imploded with Edwards.
Kieve has been back at Hilltop for a while now fulfilling his role as partner, from where he has recently donated to…the Bullock campaign noted above in Montana. That’s just one race with accusations of shady finance antics, dark money, that sort of thing. So you’d be right to suspect the Hodes campaign in 2008 or even 2010 of having been advantaged by similar tactics. OK, in 2010 “advantage” would be the wrong word.
You’d also be right to wonder why Pete Kavanaugh and Greg Wasserstrom (also of Hilltop), who do not live in New Hampshire, were operating as part of the Hilltop team, working closely with OFA, when they voted from an address in Manchester last November.
Hilltop may also have deeper money and influence connections to John Lynch in 2008, Andrew Hosmer in 2010 and Donna Soucy in 2012. Where Hilltop puts their own money other money is sure to follow.
There are a lot of tentacles. They connect to our ongoing discussion investigation of Democrat conspiracy to commit vote fraud. There are ties to campaigns involving campaign finance foolishness in other states. … Good thing we’ve got all year to reveal them.
