Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who announced her campaign for governor on June 1, released the names of several new campaign hires this week.
Among those names was Aria Branch of the D.C.-based Perkins Coie law firm who joined the campaign as a legal adviser. Branch’s bio states she has represented clients before the Federal Election Commission, the Office of Congressional Ethics, and state ethics and campaign finance regulators.
Last week Tallahassee Reports reported that Fried’s political action committee, Florida Consumers First, spent approximately $25,000 in May on legal services with Perkins Coie just ahead of her campaign announcement.
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Florida Consumers First Legal Expenses
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Perkins Coie, LLP is an international law firm founded in 1912 and located in Seattle, Washington with 20 offices in the United States, China, and Taiwan. In addition to corporate representation, the firm has represented political clients Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
This is the same law firm hired by former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in response to a federal investigation into Gillum’s PAC Forward Florida. The PAC spent approximately $225,000 with the law firm. The Tampa Bay Times reported that the escalating legal bills reflected the costs of complying with a sprawling federal grand jury subpoena issued to Forward Florida in 2019.
Why did Fried’s PAC spend $25,000 on legal services with Perkins Coie? There are a number of possible answers. Here are three.
First, Ms. Branch has experience in challenging elections laws across the U.S. Fried could be planning a legal challenge to the elections bill signed into law by Governor DeSantis.
Second, Fried was just hit with a 23-page ethic complaint filed with the Florida Commission on Ethics. Ms. Branch has experience in dealing with state ethics complaints and could have been hired to deal with Fried’s well publicized financial disclosure issues.
And finally, as mentioned above, Perkin Coie was previously involved with work related to a federal grand jury subpoena issued to Gillum’s PAC, Forward Florida. There is some thought that Fried’s legal bills could deal with issues related to the federal investigation into Joel Greenberg and Matt Gaetz.
Fried’s ties to Gaetz have been addressed previously and she was a marijuana lobbyist during the time covered by the investigation.
Of course the best way to find out what the May expenses were allocated for is to ask Nikki Fried. Maybe a state-wide reporter will pop the question when given the chance.
Why did Nikki Fried’s PAC Spend $25,000 in May on Legal Services? added by Steve Stewart on
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Reporters at the Orlando Sentinel are finally catching on to Fried’s ties with the marijuana industry. A little late, but hey what do you expect from the MSM.
June contributions to Nikki’s PAC are trending below May’s dismal numbers:
https://floridaconsumersfirst.org/
Perkins Coie are the DNC fixers. They are worse than the mafia, once they get their hooks in you…you ain’t gettin’ away.
She’s a straight up criminal, now she’s being represented by criminals that are a lot better at separating rich people from their hard earned do ray mi than your Average Scott Maddox or JT Burnette, and they do it with the blessing of the court.
Ole Nikki is gonna have to sell a whole lotta reefer to pay that bill…
It was to cover the costs of her Visine and Doritos. Perkins Coie is well known as the bag boys and hit men of the Clinton/Obama/Biden regimes. They are dirty from top to bottom.
Do not wonder what the #3!! is going on when it becomes clear Nikki was dirty in this way or that way and the powers that be soft peddle it and find all kinds of reasons not to prosecute any and all laws broken.
If you think Nikki was just courting Liberal Democrats when she was a weed lobbyist then you are severely delusional.
I guarantee you Nikki was making sweet sweet (and inappropriate) deals with Conservative Republicans at the time. And not just with some bureaucrat whose initials might be HB. Oh no she’s got big time Conservatives all nervous over when the next shoe will drop.
Dont underestimate what the greed of an early hemp related wink or nod in regards to who got licensed and who shelled out the big bucks on Nikki’s future weed investments did to a lot of your Conservative hero’s back when Nikki was a lobbyist.
Heck she may be your new Governor because of all the dirt Nikki’s got on everybody. She may have even got good ‘Ole Charlie in a compromising situation in regards to hemp related things back when she was a lobbyist.
BTW – Perking Coie has very, VERY deep ties to the Obama/Biden and Harris.Biden administrations.
“For more than two years we endured the horrible evil of the Mueller probe. The Hillary Clinton campaign had funneled $5.6 million to the Perkins Coie law firm, and they retained the services of Fusion GPS, which then hired Christopher Steele to compile a dossier on Donald Trump, the GOP candidate. Steele produced 35 pages of undocumented memos. He provided the “dossier” to Fusion, and they to the partner at PERKINS COIE. Meanwhile, from within a corroded Deep State segment within the FBI, other falsifications bubbled up, all leading to allegations that the Trump Campaign had conspired with “the Russians” to defeat Hillary and to win the 2016 Presidential election. That is why all Trump voters elected him — because Putin tricked us into abandoning the Hillary that we all love so dearly but never elect.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24721
meh.
https://www.perkinscoie.com/zh/index.html