A Duty to Cooperate

According to the September issue of Liberty magazine, powerful and influential people within the highest reaches of the Libertarian Party are refusing to cooperate with the official LNC investigation by the LP's National Chairman, James Lark, into crooked and corrupt practices within the national party.

According to Liberty, the people refusing to cooperate with the LNC investigation include two-time LP presidential candidate Harry Browne, former LP National Chairman David Bergland, prominent campaign consultant and web person Jack Dean, former LNC member Sharon Ayres, former LP National Director Perry Willis, and well-known LP fundraiser Michael Emerling-Cloud.

According to Liberty, all of them are refusing to answer questions submitted to them by Chairman Lark concerning the Browne-Willis memo that was posted a few months ago on Browne's website and sent to the LNC in response to an incriminating invoice that surfaced at the last LNC meeting. The Browne-Willis memo details an admission of crooked and dishonest conduct involving the use of a third-party intermediary to secretly, surreptitiously, and improperly funnel money to Willis, while he was serving as a LP National Director.

This now means that there are two separate sets of offenses against the Libertarian Party with which the LNC must now concern itself at its upcoming August 25-26 meeting in Las Vegas.

The first set relates to the matters described in the Browne-Willis memo and, more important, the extent to which third-party intermediaries have been and are being used in the national Libertarian Party to secretly and improperly funnel money to LP officials and others and what must be done to bring such misconduct to a permanent halt.

The second set relates to the intentional and willful refusal to cooperate with the LNC's official investigation into the wrongdoing.

It is important to keep in mind that for many years all of these people who are now refusing to cooperate with the LNC's investigation – Browne, Willis, Bergland, Ayres, Dean, and Emerling-Cloud – have received the generous support of LP members.

For several years, the LP has purchased – and continues to purchase – a steady supply of Bergland's book, Libertarianism in One Lesson, from "Orpheus Publications," a company owned by Bergland. (See "The Libertarian Party Needs a Divorce." LP members also supported Bergland in his bid to be a LP presidential nominee and, more recently, LP National Chairman.

Ayres (who is married to Bergland) received some $130,000 from Browne while serving as Browne's campaign manager while she was a LNC member, money that mostly originated from donations that LP members made to Browne's campaign.

For many years, Willis received a generous salary as LP National Director and was even provided six months of severance pay when he voluntarily chose to resign to go to work for Browne's campaign. Willis has also received extremely large sums of money from both the LP and the Browne campaign through his company "Optopia." His friend Stephanie Yanik has also been the recipient of generous sums of money from both the LP and the Browne campaign.

Dean (or his company) has been the recipient of large sums of money, both from the LP and the Browne campaign for website work.

As a fundraiser for the LP, the Browne campaign, and other LP campaigns, Michael Emerling-Cloud has raked in sizable amounts of money from Libertarian Party members over the years.

Browne has received millions of dollars in donations from LP members to his two presidential campaigns; $100,000 to fund his proposed lawsuit against the FEC; and sizable donations to fund his two new foundations. The LP purchased and used as a promotional device Browne's campaign book, Why Government Doesn't Work. Also, at the last LNC meeting, Browne received conditional LNC approval to be a litigation partner in Browne's proposed lawsuit against the FEC, subject to negotiating Browne's demand for free use of the LP's mailing list.

Perhaps most important, for the last two presidential campaigns, LP members far and wide have poured their hearts and souls into supporting Browne as their 1996 and 2000 presidential nominee and, indirectly, Bergland, Ayres, Dean, Willis, and Emerling-Cloud.

Today, the members of the Libertarian Party need the help of all these people and, through their elected representatives on the LNC, are calling on them for help. Browne, Willis, Bergland, Ayres, Dean, and Emerling-Cloud all have a moral duty to cooperate with an official investigation whose goal is to bring to a halt crooked, corrupt, and unethical conduct within the LP.

Why is their cooperation critical? Because it is in the best interests of the Libertarian Party to determine whether the use of the third-party intermediary to secretly and improperly funnel money to Willis was a one-time event or whether instead it was part of a long-established pattern of wrongdoing within the national LP. For example, what good would it do to "censor" Willis or Browne for an isolated instance of misconduct five years ago if the pattern of wrongdoing is permitted to continue secretly and surreptitiously into the future?

There are those within the LP who believe that as long as this type of misconduct is kept under wraps, it doesn't hurt the party. They are wrong. An organization that secretly conducts itself in a way that violates its own principles cannot succeed in the long run. And in order to attract the positive attention of the American people, our conduct and our appearance must be stellar, to the point where ordinary people are recommending the Libertarian Party to their next-door neighbors.

It is incumbent on those who have engaged in the wrongdoing to now voluntarily come forward and say, "This is what we have done. It was wrong. Here is how we can ensure that it is brought to a permanent stop."

What excuse have Browne, Bergland, Dean, Ayres, Willis, and Emerling-Cloud provided for refusing to cooperate with the LNC's official investigation?

They have not seen fit to provide any excuse. Even worse, Emerling-Cloud has ridiculed and mocked the LNC's investigation, terming it a "petty inquisition" and a "star-chamber proceeding."

Should Browne, Bergland, Ayres, Willis, Dean, and Emerling-Cloud be let off the hook simply because they are powerful and influential "party leaders"? Well, if they are let off the hook, then future charges of hypocrisy by Libertarians hurled toward Republicans and Democrats will ring quite hollow. Whether people are "plain vanilla" LP members, such as Gene Cisewski, or powerful and influential "party leaders," such as Browne, Bergland, Ayres, Willis, Dean, and Emerling-Cloud, all party members should be treated alike when it comes to official party investigations.

Under libertarian principles, do these people have a right not to cooperate with the LNC's official investigation? Of course.

Under libertarian principles, however, the LNC has the right to sue them in order to get at the truth, which was the method that the LNC, under the leadership of David Bergland, used against plain-vanilla LP member Gene Cisewski.

Furthermore, under libertarian principles the LP has another option that does not involve litigation: to steadfastly refuse to do business with anyone who refuses to cooperate with the LP's official investigation.

The LNC should provide Browne, Willis, Dean, Bergland, Ayres, and Emerling-Cloud another opportunity to cooperate with the LNC's investigation. But every one of them should be advised that if they persist with their obstinacy, they will have to bear the responsibility for the consequences, i.e., no further business dealings with the Libertarian Party, including consulting, contracting, articles, speeches, advertisements in LP News for both them and any campaigns with which they are associated, and use of LP mailing lists. In this way, the choice as to whether to cooperate with the LNC's official investigation – and the responsibility for making that choice – are fully in the hands of the people making the choice, where it should be.

Today, the members of the Libertarian Party have the opportunity to rebuild and refortify the foundation of the party, with the goal of making the Libertarian Party not just the "party of principle" but the "party of integrity and principle." Now is the time, when there are no national elections, to begin that process. It is incumbent on Browne, Bergland, Willis, Ayres, Dean, and Emerling-Cloud to help us accomplish this or else voluntarily accept the consequences for refusing to do so. To convey the importance that the LNC places on its official investigation, it is incumbent on the LNC to provide those consequences.

August 4, 2001

The Best of Jacob G. Hornberger