The Daily Beast has a blockbuster story on the Joanna Weiss for Congress campaign this morning which ties funding for the campaign to her husband’s earnings as a defense lawyer for the Archdiocese of Orange regarding the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandal. Read the whole piece here.
Matt Fuller, who is the Washington Bureau chief for The Daily Best defends the story from journalist Roger Sollenberger with a “story behind the story” thread on X.com (formally known as Twitter). Fuller posted this:
When @SollenbergerRC made it clear he’d be noting these coordination issues, EMILY’s List went dark. Then, they sent him a statement from spokesperson @creynoldsnc that accused Roger and the story of being “highly misogynistic.”
“Joanna Weiss is an accomplished lawyer, founder of a grassroots organization that helped elect pro-choice and pro-democracy candidates up and down the ballot, and mom fighting for women’s reproductive freedom across America,” Reynolds said. “To equate her campaign for Congress to her husband’s legal career is highly misogynistic. Voters in the district deserve better than these sexist attacks.”
Soon after, Weiss’s campaign and Weiss herself sent purposefully lengthy statements. Both of those statements use the same language of deflection. Neither statement answers the essential question: Where is the money Weiss is using for her campaign coming from?
“Over a combined 359 words, the candidate and her campaign also attacked the character of this report as “desperate,” “digusting,” “shameful,” “shameless,” and “misogynistic.” Both statements also highlighted Weiss’ experiene as a sexual assault survivor herself. But neither statement addressed the heart of the story: the source of the money fueling Weiss’ campaign.”
The answer clearly seems to be from Weiss’s husband’s legal work, where he represents the Catholic Church in molestation lawsuits. And to be clear, this isn’t one-off representation. Jason Weiss is a major player in these suits.
Jason Weiss has worked on four cases for the Catholic Church—an organization, it’s worth noting, that is staunchly against abortion, which Weiss has made a central part of her campaign.
That’s fine. They’re separate people, right? Except their finances aren’t. She’s running a campaign with this money, and is hoping voters won’t notice, won’t care, or will accept some line that it’s “misogynistic” to ask these questions.
Disclosure: I’m not a woman. But I don’t think gender has anything to do with these questions, and I don’t think it’s offensive to question running a congressional campaign on money earned by representing the Catholic Church in molestation lawsuits.
What I do find offensive is that anyone would hide behind the real very history of misogyny and sexist attacks in congressional campaigns to evade transparency. I find it offensive to attack @SollenbergerRC, an incredible reporter who cares deeply about these issues.
I hope you’ll read the story, and I hope you’ll share it. Because that’s what these people don’t want you to do. They don’t want transparency. They don’t want accountability. They don’t want anyone asking questions. Don’t let them get away with it.
The story is bonkers; well-researched and well-documented. I honestly don’t care about her husband’s career and compensation or who he represents (everyone deserves good legal counsel, right). What’s troublesome is the Weiss campaign sent the reporter to EMILY’s List for comment. EMILY’s List is a PAC seeking to elect women to high office. That’s all good, but it’s illegal for a campaign and a PAC to cooridnate activities. It’s also super unethical especailly when Weiss touts her role in creating WAVE….so much for values and ethics right?
From the article:
But as Joanna Weiss dings her Democratic opponent for his distant legal affiliations, it’s fair to examine where the money came from with which Joanna Weiss is funding her campaign—especially when that source so controversially stands in the way of her campaign’s centerpiece issue: women’s rights.
When asked about the source of Weiss’ campaign funds, a campaign spokesperson repeatedly refused to say where the money came from. Of course, Weiss can claim those specific dollars come from some other source or legal work. That’s the nature of fungible dollars. But that same argument makes it difficult for Weiss to say those dollars aren’t funding her campaign. Notably, over the course of multiple conversations and statements—including from Weiss, her campaign, and a PAC supporting her—no one attempted to claim that the bulk of her $231,600 in personal campaign contributions didn’t, directly or indirectly, come from Jason Weiss’ work defending the Catholic Church in child sexual molestation lawsuits.
….
The Daily Beast sent detailed comment requests to spokespeople for Sheppard Mullin and Jason Weiss in his professional capacity, along with the Diocese of Orange and the Weiss campaign. Sheppard Mullin and Jason Weiss did not answer The Daily Beast’s detailed inquiry.
….
The Weiss campaign spokesperson initially passed The Daily Beast’s questions to EMILY’s List, the political organization that bills itself as “the nation’s largest resource dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women to office.” An EMILY’s List spokesperson subsequently reached out via text message “on behalf of the campaign,” but stopped communicating when informed that the chain of communication would be documented in the article.
After the campaign committed to providing comment, the EMILY’s List spokesperson contacted The Daily Beast again to offer an on-record statement from senior communications official Christina Reynolds.
“Joanna Weiss is an accomplished lawyer, founder of a grassroots organization that helped elect pro-choice and pro-democracy candidates up and down the ballot, and mom fighting for women’s reproductive freedom across America,” Reynolds said. “To equate her campaign for Congress to her husband’s legal career is highly misogynistic. Voters in the district deserve better than these sexist attacks.”
This story categorically does not equate Joanna Weiss’ campaign with her husband’s legal career. It does note, however, that Joanna Weiss appears to be running a congressional campaign fueled by money her husband earned defending the Catholic Church from child sexual abuse lawsuits. At its core, this is a story about the source of Joanna Weiss’ campaign money—not her gender—and instead of addressing those questions, Reynolds chose to deflect by simply asserting that this story is “misogynistic.”
While the EMILY’s List spokesperson tore down a fake version of this article, the nature of her outreach—the Weiss campaign initially directing comment to an outside PAC, then appearing to work with them on complementing statements—raised a real issue.
Two campaign finance experts told The Daily Beast that it appears EMILY’s List was essentially functioning as a campaign vendor, suggestive of a potential in-kind contribution, an analysis they caveated with the fact that none of them had ever encountered such a scenario. (The Daily Beast reached out to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about their apparent coordination, but did not immediately receive a reply.)
After EMILY’s List sent its comment, The Daily Beast also received unsolicited comments from Weiss allies in Orange County. Eventually, Weiss and her campaign manager also provided statements around 11 p.m. Wednesday night.
Over a combined 359 words, the candidate and her campaign also attacked the character of this report as “desperate,” “disgusting,” “shameful,” “shameless,” and “misogynistic.” Both statements also highlighted Weiss’ experience as a sexual assault survivor herself. But neither statement addressed the heart of this story: the source of the money fueling Weiss’ campaign.
Campaign manager Emma Weinert also erroneously blamed this report on rival Dave Min, after The Daily Beast repeatedly denied any contact with Min, his campaign, or any of his associates.
“When confronted with a strong woman, Dave Min has one response, to lean on misogyny and sexism,” Weinert’s statement said, harking back to a 2018 campaign ad.
“It’s 2024, and we are still comparing a female candidate to her husband’s career,” Weinert continued, once again ignoring questions about where the money funding Weiss’ campaign came from. “These desperate attacks are shameless and misogynistic.”
Weinert continued that “Joanna Weiss has spent her career defending those in need—students with special needs, seniors, and sexual assault survivors, like Joanna herself.”
“Joanna is proud of her work giving back to her community, and the countless hours she has put into raising her three children, like so many women across Orange County,” Weinert said.
In a separate statement, Joanna Weiss pointed to her long career as a community organizer and advocate for the vulnerable.
“Since I was 15, I have gone to work every day. As an organizer in my community working on the issues that matter to my neighbors. As an attorney protecting seniors, students with special needs, and domestic violence survivors. As a voting rights advocate building Orange County’s largest grassroots organization to protect reproductive choice. And, thankfully for the last 20 years, as a mom,” the statement said.
Weiss also called this story a “desperate and shameful” attack, adding that such reporting serves to “erase the work of all moms across the district and Orange County.”
“It is disgusting to use a tragedy to score political points,” the statement continued. “As a survivor of sexual assault myself, I am heartbroken to see this be weaponized to further one man’s political ambition.”
Again, at no point in her statement did Weiss deny funding her campaign with money that the Catholic Church used to try to deprive sexual abuse survivors of restitution.
I’m going to agree with the Weiss campaign on part of one of their statements. The voters of this district deserve answers and honesty from candidates. Deflection works with those who are easily distracted (Look, squirrel!”). A clear question was asked by The Daily Beast and the deflective answers did nothing to help Weiss. But that is not unexpected from a campaign who sent Christmas Cards from their Newport Beach apartment and left off the apartment number. Constrast this to when Min was arrested for a DUI last May. He addressed the arrest, apologized, and took corrective action. And the four women/two men Editorial Board and the LA Times lauded Min for his honesty.
I think that if you decide to self-fund in as significant a way as Weiss has, you better make sure the source of that self-funding is compatible with the values of the people you are seeking to represent.
Emma, surrender
I’m laughing at this. Friends tell me Emma is from Iowa but thinks she knows more than the fruits and nuts in California good for her
Is it just a coincidence that the boys at Orange Juice blog haven’t posted anything in support of Joanna Weiss in many weeks? Even before the LATimes endorsement of Dave Min and the Daily Beast expose on the source of her self-funding.
They couldn’t have known about either. But they might have noticed FINALLY that the coordination between WAVE, a PAC, and the Weiss campaign was improper and unethical.
To be fair to Joanna, I am given to understand that her campaign cut off the OJB, when her husband learned of the blogs support of anti-semetic. Homophobic and Sexually Inappropriate Tweets.
I predict this will be one of many politicians who abandon those sick racists.
How long before Michelle Steele weaponizes Verns comments calling KBN a whore or Greg calling her husband a “cop-loving whore”?
Hmmm. And now Harley goes off the rails. Weiss has better enemies than friends.