Letter to The Oregonian: Endorse Lathrop for AG

In criticizing Oregon's dismaying response to campaign finance fraud, The Oregonian's editorial board explained why it should endorse Republican Will Lathrop for Attorney General.

Will Lathrop, Republican candidate for Oregon Attorney General

Dear The Oregonian Editorial Board:

I write in response to your recent editorial, “The perils of a one-party state,” in which you recount the indefensible decision by the Oregon Department of Justice not to pursue criminal charges against anyone in relation to the misreporting by the Democratic Party of Oregon of the source of its largest-ever contribution, $500,000, received in October 2022.

Your editorial details some of the reasons, by now etched into cortex of my frequent readers, the DPO should have known the contribution was from then-cryptocurrency executive and convicted federal campaign finance fraudster Nishad Singh, and not from his crypto bank, Prime Trust LLC, as originally reported by the DPO.

Foremost among those reasons: an online chat between DPO researcher Christina Buckland and compliance director Amelia Manlove.

Christa Buckland Oct 28, 10:56 AM

Aisling [Coghlan, DPO Coordinated Campaign director] had me look into that Prime Trust LLC contribution, and I gathered that it was not from Prime Trust directly but they were acting as a custodian of the funds. Did you hear back from them? There is an article out today that references the contribution. Which Brad [Martin, DPO executive director] just asked me not to circulate but I am thinking they might be inaccurate in their reporting.

Amelia Manlove Oct 28, 11:00 AM

No, it WAS from Prime Trust LLC. If it were from someone else, we would not have been able to accept it because that would be a contribution in a false name, which is illegal to make and illegal to accept—not that you should circulate any of this information either.

Christa Buckland Oct 28, 11:04 AM

I will keep my mouth shut for sure. I am just so surprised. Their name turned up in [Federal Election Commission] reporting before and they wound up clarifying they were not the donor and had only facilitated the transaction on behalf of Sam Bankman Fried, and the owner or Prime Trust LLC has only ever made one small contribution to a candidate he went to school with.

The FEC reporting has since been corrected to reflect Bankman Fried as the contributor.

(Italics added to the more cover-uppy bits)

That late October 2022 exchange, which references The Oregonian’s Hillary Borrud and Mark Friesen’s story that for the first time brought up the odd fact that an obscure Nevada crypto bank had just dumped half-a-million dollars into Oregon, shows the DPO not only intended, but took action to cover up its knowledge that the money didn’t really come from Prime Trust, when they said it did.

Your editorial says the DPO performed “sloppy due diligence,” which led to its misreporting of the source of the contribution. The exchange above shows the DPO was not just sloppy; it actively deceived the public and the agencies that regulate campaign finance in Oregon. The exchange did not become public until after DOJ announced there was no legal jeopardy for the DPO in releasing it. It does not appear the DPO shared the exchange with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Elections Division when it was conducting its own investigation before referring the matter to DOJ. That might not have mattered, either, because, as you point out, the Elections Division is and was run by Molly Woon, who used to work for the DPO.

In response to this mess, you call for “creating a culture [in Oregon] where election laws are treated with the seriousness they deserve.” Respectfully, that’s a vague recommendation. If the editorial board cares about serious enforcement of Oregon’s campaign finance laws as they now exist or as they will after a beefing up in 2027, there is a more specific step the editorial board should urge.

The Oregonian editorial board ought to endorse Will Lathrop for Attorney General. Lathrop, a Republican, is by definition not part of the good-old-people network of Democrats who quite blatantly disregarded campaign finance laws in this matter. (The refusal by DOJ to prosecute even Nishad Singh, who pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges arising from identical conduct and admitted to knowingly violating Oregon campaign finance laws in his interview with DOJ is especially galling).

Lathrop’s Democratic opponent, Dan Rayfield, is very much part of the same team that made a mockery of Oregon’s campaign finance laws to protect Democrats. Rayfield reports no fewer than 40 campaign finance transaction with the DPO since he entered politics in 2010, with $10,000 in contributions from Rayfield to the DPO already in 2024 alone:

Source: Oregon Orestar campaign finance database

Rayfield is following in the footsteps of his would-be predecessor, Ellen Rosenblum, in helping to fund the DPO. Rosenblum’s conflict of interest, as your editorial points out, led to her ineffectual “recusal” from the Singh matter that left her subordinates in charge of the investigation and decision to sweep all this under the rug. If Rayfield wins, one can reasonably expect Oregon’s “culture” of campaign finance law enforcement leaves undisturbed the malfeasance of the party that controls the state.

You endorsed Ellen Rosenblum for re-election in 2020, observing that her Republican opponent then was not a lawyer and was prone to conspiracy theories. Lathrop is a lawyer, with an intriguing background including combating human trafficking in Africa, and seems like a non-conspiratorial guy. Moreover, statutorily, Oregon’s Attorney General is supposed to be front-and-center in enforcing campaign finance laws.

Your editorial demonstrates that Rosenblum was a failure in this regard. Endorsing someone who has replicated Rosenblum’s financial entanglement with the DPO will not change Oregon’s culture of corruption.

Thank you again for your attention to this important story.

Jeff Eager

PS - Thank you, too, for mentioning in your editorial my reporting of the DPO’s knowledge the $500,000 did not come from Prime Trust. Minor quibble: you refer to me as “political blogger Jeff Eager.” I write stuff about Oregon politics and policy that is disseminated to subscribers via email and posted on the web. I think that’s most of what The Oregonian does these days.