In many ways. The fundraising letter from Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen was typical the New Jersey Republican asked for money, of course, he also claimed that organized forces were working to thwart the conservative agenda. But when he sent the letter to a board member at a local bank, farreling Hysen did something unusual. Ps He hand wrote at the bottom, one
of the ringleaders works at your bank. That was a reference to Saley av Linda, a senior vice president who's active in a group that was pressuring Frelinghuysen to hold town hall meetings. Avalenda has since resigned, and she told The Washington Post the letter was an attempt to intimidate her. The story was first reported by w NYC. With us to talk about the letter is Brendan Fisher. He is
a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center. We reached out to Congressman Frelinghuysen's office to invite the representative onto the show, but they have not responded to us. Brendan, thanks for joining us tell us. Does it seem as though Congressman Frelinghuysen might have crossed some ethical and legal lines here? Well, I think you can certainly say that he crossed some ethical lines. Um. It's not clear whether he necessarily violated a specific ethics law, but that doesn't mean that this
activity was at all ethical. UM. I think this might be in the category of perhaps lawful, but but certainly awful. What in these fundraising letters? What is normally the the the thrust of them? I mean, is there a hard push to get money in in some way? A Are they normally more general than this? Um? I think, I mean you'll certainly see a broad range of a fundraising
letters and the content of fundraising letters. UM. And I think there's there's two ways of there's two ways of viewing what the what the ask was here, what the suggestion was here with this handwritten note. One was that it was a way of the representatives suggesting to the banker that, uh, he should fire this employee for their political activity, which does implicate some some ethic clause which
we can get into. But then the other the other is that it was a way of the representatives suggesting to the banker that that you're on my naughty list. Um, if you want to stay in my good graces, you'll give me you'll give me more money for my for my campaign. And this goes to the what might be described as the bribery versus extortion theories of money in politics. One is that under the bribery theory, donors would give
the candidates because they want something in return. And then there's also the extortion theory that candidates shakedown donors for money with the threat of some sort of negative action if they don't give um. And this sounds a little bit closer to the to the latter theory. Um the representatives suggesting that you are you're you're on my naughty list, you're not in my good graces. One way that you can uh, one way that you can curry favor with me and get back on my on my nice list
is by is by giving me money. And it appears that that is actually what happened here. So this woman's saiy of a Linda wasn't, as I understand it, kind of a household name in the eleventh District of New Jersey. What what if do we know about how the congressman might have made the connection between her as as an activist and this this bank that he was listening money from, or at least from a from a board member. I
don't know. I don't know that that's been that that's been made public, and I don't know that the representative has has said how he found this out. Um. From from the reporting that I've seen, it seems like he must he or his someone on his campaign must have
put some effort into tracking this person down. Um that they would have had to had to google her name, would have had to look at her LinkedIn, would have had to look at the uh look at the bank website to determine who she was and where she worked. So it does appear that there was some some level of effort put into this. Uh. And and really, I mean,
this is this is this is incredibly problematic. It's not the role of a member of Congress to tell private employers in the district who they should and shouldn't hire. She was a senior vice president at this local bank, so pretty high up in the bank, and yet she resigned shortly after this. Were her reasons for resigning this letter?
Was she afraid she was being targeted? Uh? That's my understanding. Um. It does appear that after after her boss received the letter, that she was called into his office, showed her the letter, and then she had to write a statement explaining what she was involved in and and oddly declaring that she was she was a friend of the bank. UM and and then reportedly the pressure became worse and she eventually
she eventually resigned. UM. And it does appear in in large part of the problems that that arose in her appoyment situation did appear in in large part as a result of her political activities, and at least in part because a member of Congress UH informed her boss about her political activities and put some some level of pressure
on her boss to to retaliate against her. UM. Don't point out we we brushed over this earlier, but there is actually a criminal provision at eighteen USC to seven, and there's also an analogous provision and how the House Ethics Code that prohibits a Member of Congress from influence influencing a private entities employment decision on partisan grounds by
offering or threatening to take or withhold an official act. UH. So I think the representative does come close to violating this this provision, both this criminal law provision and this how the House Ethics provision. UM. The question here, though, is whether the representative offered or threatened an official act like a vote on legislation or some formal exercise of
governmental power. Uh. Certainly we can say that the representative was attempting to or there's an appearance of representive the representative attempting to influence the bank's decision to employ this woman based on her partisan political activities. Uh. The question is really whether he had offered to make or withhold some sort of an official act um And from the context of the letter, I don't I don't know that
that's clear. But we also don't know whether there were additional conversations or interactions between the representative and the banker, or or if there was additional context here that we don't know about. Just from uh that that we just don't know about yet, it sounds like there's an awful lot we don't know. Let me read. Although we did, as I mentioned, invite the congressman or one of his representatives onto the show and didn't hear back from them, he did provide a statement to w n y C.
And this is what the statement said. The Congressman wrote a brief, an innocuous note at the bottom of a personal letter in regard to information that had been reported in the media. He was in no way involved in any of the bank's business and is unaware of any particulars about this employee's status with the bank. Brandon anything in there that you hear that that changes the situation
for you, UM I I don't think so. UM. I mean, certainly the Congressman was intending to communicate some sort of a message by by taking the time, first of all, to apparently conduct research into this uh into this individual, and then to put a handwritten note on the bottom
of this of this fundraising appeal. I would gather that that's not standard practice, that the that the Congressman is not writing a handwritten note on the bottom of every single fundraising appeal that he that he sends, and the message was was clearly sent, according to according to reports, the as a result of this UH what what the Congressman calls an innocuous and brief handwritten note at the bottom of this personal letter, um, the recipient of the
letter called the employee into his office and eventually the and eventually the the employee UH quit was pressured was apparently pressured into quitting as a results of her political activity and as a result of this note from her from her elected official Brandon, We're gonna have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Brendan Fisher of the Campaign Legal Center for joining us on Bloomberg law.