In 2022, when then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt launched an investigation into the Mark Zuckerberg-funded, leftist infiltration of U.S. elections, Schmitt’s press secretary told Red State, “[W]e aren’t backing down — we’re going to continue to fight and get to the bottom of this.”
More than two years later, Schmitt is representing the Show Me State in the U.S. Senate and his successor, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, has effectively killed the “Zuckbucks” investigation, sources tell The Federalist.
“When the new guy came in, he just basically stopped working on it,” a source with detailed knowledge of the investigation told The Federalist this week.
And, sources note, no lawsuit has been filed against the Center for Tech & Civic Life, the Chicago-based, left-wing nonprofit organization that raked in at least $328 million from Facebook founder Zuckerberg and his wife to fund grants for local election administration — particularly in critical swing states — leading up to the hotly contested 2020 election.
Bailey’s conservative critics have questioned his commitment to holding accountable the purveyors of the Zuckbucks election interference scheme, and what they see as his lack of interest in taking on President Joe Biden’s executive order turning executive branch agencies into a taxpayer get-out-the-vote machine for Democrats.
‘The Investigation Stopped’
Schmitt announced in June 2022 that his office issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) — an administrative subpoena — to leftist “voter rights” group CTCL seeking documents involving its “charitable activities.” As The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway reported in her 2021 book Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections. CTCL’s co-founders have long records of far-left activism. Under the guise of Covid, the Zuckerberg-funded CTCL worked with a network of leftist organizations, some of whom were embedded in election offices in swing states like Wisconsin. Billed as safe election grants, the funds were distributed to local election administrators across the country. Subsequent reviews found much of the money was used for GOTV initiatives targeting left-leaning voters.
The Show Me State received nearly $9 million in CTCL grants, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA). As in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Florida, Zuckbucks favored Democrat-leaning election jurisdictions.
“All [Joe] Biden-carried counties received Zuckerbucks, while less than half of the counties won by President [Donald] Trump were grant recipients,” FGA reported. “Biden-carried counties averaged a grant award of nearly $1.3 million. By comparison, the average award for a Trump-carried county was less than $107,000.”
Schmitt thought all of that very troubling, enough to launch an investigation and issue demands for documents. But sources tell The Federalist the probe hit a brick wall soon after Schmitt departed for the Senate.
“To be fair, no one said, ‘We don’t care about Zuckerbucks.’ There were a number of things going on and they may have decided to allocate resources elsewhere. But the investigation stopped moving forward,” the source with knowledge of the case said.
The attorney general’s office blamed the previous administration for not informing the new administration of the investigation’s status.
“It was our understanding that the previous administration closed the investigation due to the fact that Justin Smith, then-Chief of Staff, never brought it to the attention of the new administration as a pending, active matter,” a spokeswoman for the AG’s office told The Federalist.
Reached for comment, Smith said the accusation is “categorically false.” He said he and others in the transition team worked closely with the incoming attorney general. As chief of staff, Smith routinely printed active case file reports. The Federalist reviewed the last report Smith submitted as Bailey took over showing the CTCL probe into potential charity fraud was still very active.
“This was an open matter and it remained an open matter when Bailey took office. I can guarantee I never closed it. I would have to give the order to close it,” Smith told me in a phone interview from his law office. “I felt very confident this [investigation] should be done.” Furthermore, Smith said, he’s heard from sources inside Bailey’s office that the AG closed the probe.
“They closed it through an affirmative decision on their end,” the former chief of staff said. “I wasn’t in the office but that is my understanding that that was the decision that they made.”
Bailey also did not join 16 of his Republican colleagues earlier this year in pushing back against a provision in “Bidenbucks” that allows liberal universities to use federal work-study programs to cover the bill for hiring students to register voters and work in polling places.
Curiously, Bailey announced that he was filing his own lawsuit to “HALT the illegal ‘Biden Bucks’ program,” shortly after The Federalist pressed his office and the campaign on why he had not signed on to the April letter with his fellow AGs. Bailey’s office said the AG announced his intention last week, pointing to a tweet that declared major developments surrounding election integrity would be coming “in the coming days.”
Claims and Counterclaims
Bailey’s campaign vehemently denied a report in the Missouri Scout that claimed the attorney general sought advice from prominent Jefferson City Democrat and trial court attorney Chuck Hatfield, who has represented CTCL in the Zuckbucks case. The Scout, a subscriber-only politics publication popular among the Jefferson City political set, quoted an unnamed source who alleged that Bailey “sought out a range of advice,” including consulting former Democrat Gov. Jay Nixon’s former chief of staff, when Nixon served as AG. That was Hatfield.
“Smart move by AG designee Andrew Bailey to turn to Chuck Hatfield for counsel on how to properly structure the Attorney General’s office … after more than 6 years of having AG’s who aspired for higher office, it will be good to have an AG more focused on running the office,” the source reportedly told the publication.
A Bailey campaign official initially told The Federalist the attorney general has never talked to Hatfield, or met him. Bailey’s longtime friend and campaign manager, James Lawson, clarified in a statement to The Federalist that “Attorney General Bailey has never met with Chuck Hatfield in his official capacity or as an appointee. And certainly not to seek any professional advice or counsel.”
Reached for comment at his office Wednesday evening, Hatfield said the Scout report isn’t true, but that he has indeed met Bailey — speaking to him on at least two occasions, in the governor’s office and at a Jefferson City restaurant. Hatfield said he did speak with some people “active in Republican Party politics who said, ‘If Bailey was smart he would call you, Chuck, and get some historical on how [the office] is run.’”
“I said I’d be happy to do it, but it never happened,” the attorney said. The Federalist obtained and reviewed records showing Hatfield represented CTCL in the state investigation.
Smith said he was told by an official in Bailey’s administration that the attorney general did indeed seek out advice from Hatfield, known in Missouri politics as the Democratic Party’s “super lawyer.”
A Change in Priorities?
In January 2023, as Bailey was taking over leadership in the AG’s office, National Review reported that senior leaders were leaving the team Schmitt built, “leading conservative legal observers to conclude that Bailey’s priorities are not in line with those of his” aggressive corruption-fighting predecessor.
“When the core group of stalwarts on important cases announce they’re resigning upon the swearing in of a new attorney general, it causes a lot of people to have concerns about what that attorney general intends to be doing,” one source, described as “a senior figure in the conservative legal movement,” told National Review at the time. “Because these are people who are well known for their conservatism and stomach for the fight, and if they are all choosing to depart in quick succession that causes us to have doubts about where that office intends to go.”
A source with knowledge of the Zuckbucks case said the investigation no longer seemed a priority for Bailey.
“I don’t know why he didn’t make that a priority,” the source told The Federalist.
The AG’s spokeswoman said Bailey has fought for election integrity on several fronts, “including but not limited to: fighting censorship on social media platforms to ensure voters have access to all information” via the Missouri v. Biden case and “fighting to secure our border through numerous ongoing cases, one of which he landed a huge win in just yesterday.” His predecessor launched the former case, which ultimately hit a speed bump in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bailey, who served as Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s general counsel before being tapped as attorney general, has been accused of being less in line with Schmitt’s approach than with the political philosophy of his old boss, who “prefers a more business-friendly, local approach,” according to National Review.
“Bailey is not going to be the conservative fighter that Eric Schmitt was, and that’s largely by design. Governor Parson, who Andrew Bailey worked for, didn’t like being overshadowed and he also had a different philosophical view of the AG’s office, so it’s going to be a much less active, less aggressive office under Andrew Bailey,” a former Parson staffer told the publication.
Smith, the former chief of staff, tendered his resignation on Dec. 20, 2022. In his resignation letter, he made his concern about the incoming administration clear.
“I love the Attorney General’s Office, and I am proud of all that Attorney General Eric Schmitt and our team have accomplished for the people of Missouri. I look forward to continuing to work for a strong conservative who fights for Missouri values, instead of for someone who asks Planned Parenthood’s attorney for advice on how to run the office,” Smith wrote.
‘Two Highly Respected Candidates’
Bailey, appointed by Parson to replace Schmitt when the former AG left for Congress, is in a tough Republican primary fight against attorney Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor and member of former President Donald Trump’s legal team. Each man has earned Trump’s support via a dual full-throated endorsement from the GOP’s presidential candidate.
“Missouri has two highly respected candidates running for the important Office of Attorney General, your current A.G., Andrew Bailey, and one of my very talented lawyers in private life, Will Scharf,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social network.
Scharf has written articles for The Federalist, including multiple 2023 articles arguing Jack Smith’s legal case against Trump regarding classified documents was flawed. A federal judge recently dismissed the case.
Trump also has endorsed the three leading Republicans for Missouri governor: Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, and State Sen. Bill Eigel. Parson has thrown his support behind his lieutenant in the governor’s race, and he’s sticking with the man he picked for a full term as attorney general.
Schmitt has endorsed Bailey in the primary.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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