The Wall Street Journal reports on Commissioner Donald McGahn is showing leadership in taking on overzealous Federal Election Commission (FEC) staff.  The Commissioners are considering guidance that would prevent the bureaucracy from picking and choosing information on pending civil investigations and giving that information to
the Department
of Justice without authorization: 

…over the years staff have come to ignore the law, and routinely
initiate their own inquiries—often on little more than accusations they
find on blogs or Facebook. For a sense of how these investigations can go off the rails,
consider that Lois Lerner—before serving as the center of today’s IRS
scandal—was the senior enforcement officer at the FEC. A Christian
Coalition lawyer has testified that during a (sanctioned) FEC
investigation in the 1990s—in addition to generating endless subpoenas,
depositions and document requests, Ms. Lerner’s staff demanded to know
what Coalition members discussed at their prayer meetings and what
churches they belonged to. Once staff gets rolling, there is little to
stop them.

More troubling to some
FEC commissioners has been the staff’s unsanctioned and growing ties to
the Obama Justice Department. In September 2011, Tony Herman was named
FEC general counsel. Mr. Herman in early 2012 brought in Dan Petalas, a
Justice prosecutor, as head of the agency’s enforcement section. FECA is
clear that a bipartisan majority of commissioners must vote to report
unlawful conduct to law enforcement. Yet FEC staff have increasingly
been sending agency content to Justice without informing the commission.

In essence, the FEC bureaucracy wants to continue using selected “google and blog searches” for unofficial information targeting candidates and committees and then silently working with the overzealous Department of Justice.  Does this sound familiar?  Yes, the same type of collusion and out-of-control bureaucracy that resulted in the biggest IRS scandal in history.  

This time, a majority the FEC Commissioners will put an end to it and protect the American people.