Lawbreaker Tim Eyman accuses Bob Ferguson of “personally profiting” from suing Donald Trump’s regime in his latest plea for money

For most of the past two decades, dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman has been will­ful­ly and bla­tant­ly vio­lat­ing Wash­ing­ton State’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws, mak­ing a mock­ery of the cam­paign finance mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem estab­lished by the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton to shine a spot­light on mon­ey in pol­i­tics. And for almost as long, Eyman has avoid­ed being held account­able for his lawbreaking.

But that changed last year when Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s cam­paign finance unit began act­ing on a series of com­plaints against Eyman referred to his office by Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment, Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling, and the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion. The state has now filed a total of four law­suits against Eyman as a result of the com­plaints, the most promi­nent of which is in response to an egre­gious case of con­ceal­ment dat­ing back to the sum­mer of 2012.

All of Eyman’s legal woes are entire­ly self-inflict­ed (mean­ing they could have eas­i­ly been avoid­ed through sound book­keep­ing and com­pli­ance prac­tices), but you would­n’t know that from read­ing Eyman’s end­less fundrais­ing appeals.

Eyman has no occu­pa­tion oth­er than ped­dling destruc­tive, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ini­tia­tives, so he has to be in fundrais­ing mode all of the time to keep the mon­ey rolling in. In the past, his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry has been a lucra­tive source of income. But now that his law­break­ing is catch­ing up with him, it’s become a liability.

Since he had­n’t planned on being held account­able for his crooked ways, Eyman is now fever­ish­ly try­ing to raise mon­ey for his legal defense via direct mail in addi­tion to buck­rak­ing elec­tron­i­cal­ly for Ini­tia­tive 947, his lat­est assault on Sound Tran­sit, which he wants to get on the 2018 bal­lot.

Ril­ing up gullible right wingers is Eyman’s pre­ferred way of reel­ing in the Ben­jamins, so he almost always crafts his fundrais­ing appeals around a foil or vil­lain. Usu­al­ly, the foil is an elect­ed offi­cial like Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, Sen­a­tor-elect Man­ka Dhin­gra, or Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dave Somers.

In this case, the foil is Bob Fer­gu­son, because it is Fer­gu­son who is respon­si­ble for bring­ing cas­es against law­break­ers like Eyman as Attor­ney General.

In his first legal defense solic­i­ta­tion, sent back in June, Eyman described him­self as the vic­tim of a “stun­ning witch hunt” by Fer­gu­son.

“It’s a stun­ning witch hunt that’s been going on for a while,” wrote Eyman. “For the past five years, the AG has been inves­ti­gat­ing me and it has been incred­i­bly stress­ful, bur­den­some, and cost­ly to me and my family.”

It’s worth not­ing that Fer­gu­son’s office did­n’t actu­al­ly start inves­ti­gat­ing Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry until two years ago, when the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to refer the afore­men­tioned egre­gious case of con­ceal­ment to his office for fol­low-up and poten­tial action.

The Com­mis­sion con­clud­ed — after hav­ing inves­ti­gat­ed an August 2012 com­plaint filed by Taco­ma-based activist Sher­ry Bock­winkel — that Eyman and his asso­ciates had com­mit­ted mul­ti­ple, seri­ous vio­la­tions of the law.

Six months elapsed fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of the com­plaint before the PDC con­firmed its intent to an open an inves­ti­ga­tion, then anoth­er thir­ty months went by before PDC staff pre­sent­ed their find­ings to the Commission.

Since this back­sto­ry con­tra­dicts Eyman’s per­se­cu­tion nar­ra­tive, Eyman left it out of his fundrais­ing solic­i­ta­tion, opt­ing instead to false­ly tell the recip­i­ents of his let­ter that he has been under the cloud of an AG inves­ti­ga­tion for five years.

If that were real­ly true, then the inves­ti­ga­tion Eyman says has been so stress­ful, bur­den­some, and cost­ly to him would have begun under the aus­pices of Repub­li­can Rob McKen­na, as McKen­na was still Attor­ney Gen­er­al back in 2012.

Last week, Eyman fol­lowed up with a sec­ond legal defense fund solic­i­ta­tion in which he took his crit­i­cism of Fer­gu­son to a whole ‘nother lev­el, hav­ing appar­ent­ly fig­ured there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cash in on Repub­li­can irri­ta­tion with Fer­gu­son. The enig­mat­ic Attor­ney Gen­er­al, who won reelec­tion in a land­slide, has been fil­ing suit against Don­ald Trump and his regime every time his team con­cludes that Trump has bro­ken the law or run afoul of the Unit­ed States Constitution.

“Aren’t you sick and tired of Demo­c­rat [sic] Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son forc­ing tax­pay­ers to pay for his run for Gov­er­nor in 2020 by fil­ing almost dai­ly law­suits against our Pres­i­dent, an old woman who did­n’t want to do the flow­ers for a gay wed­ding, a high school foot­ball coach who prayed after games, numer­ous busi­ness own­ers, and me?,” Eyman wrote. “Fer­gu­son’s clear­ly try­ing to impress lib­er­al vot­ers by suing con­ser­v­a­tives. His tax­pay­er-fund­ed law­suits allow him to con­stant­ly pro­mote him­self in news­pa­pers, radio, and TV. It’s a bla­tant abuse of power.”

Eyman also char­ac­ter­ized Fer­gu­son as attempt­ing to “per­son­al­ly prof­it off of his per­se­cu­tion of me” — an accu­sa­tion echoed in an email Eyman sent to his fol­low­ers and reporters the same day his solic­i­ta­tion began land­ing in mail­box­es, which includ­ed a copy of this sto­ry pub­lished by The News Tri­bune of Taco­ma.

Unusu­al­ly, that email did not con­clude with a plea for mon­ey as Eyman’s emails ordi­nar­i­ly do. The email instead sim­ply end­ed in a ques­tion posed to Eyman’s fol­low­ers (“What are your thoughts on this?”)

The solic­i­ta­tion, how­ev­er, end­ed with a very per­son­al, anx­ious appeal for mon­ey along with Eyman’s home address and an instruc­tion to pay by check.

“I know you may have already donat­ed to me this year, but in light of our court vic­to­ry and the result­ing increase in legal costs, I must ask you again to please help me with my legal defense fund (FYI — dona­tions to legal defense funds are con­sid­ered part of attor­ney-client priv­i­lege and thus are anony­mous and not pub­licly report­ed). I hope you can help me dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time,” Eyman wrote.

It is tru­ly absurd that a man who has long per­son­al­ly prof­it­ed from pol­i­tics would have the gall to crit­i­cize some­one else for alleged­ly doing the same thing.

Any­one who knows Bob Fer­gu­son (as I do) knows Fer­gu­son does­n’t bring law­suits out of a desire for fame or for­tune. He brings them in order to see that the rule of law and our plan of gov­ern­ment are upheld. It is job as the chief legal offi­cer of the state to defend the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws of the State of Wash­ing­ton… a job he takes very seri­ous­ly and is paid $160,989 a year (as of 09/01/2017) to do.

When Fer­gu­son’s office was tasked with defend­ing Tim Eyman’s hostage-tak­ing, bla­tant­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al I‑1366 in court last year, his office put forth its best effort, earn­ing lav­ish pub­lic praise from Eyman in the process.

The state lost the case and I‑1366 was struck down, but that was expect­ed: I‑1366 was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al every way to Sun­day. Still, Fer­gu­son had a duty under the law to defend I‑1366, and he did not shirk from that duty.

Fer­gu­son has repeat­ed­ly stat­ed through­out this year that no one is above the law, not even the Pres­i­dent. If Don­ald Trump won’t vol­un­tar­i­ly fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion, then Bob Fer­gu­son will go to court to com­pel him to, as many times as nec­es­sary. Are Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers appre­cia­tive? No doubt, just as Repub­li­can vot­ers were hap­py when Fer­gu­son’s pre­de­ces­sor Rob McKen­na joined a mul­ti-state law­suit against the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act back when he had the job.

Eyman nev­er com­plained that McKen­na was using tax­pay­er-fund­ed law­suits (or the pletho­ra of “pub­lic ser­vice announce­ments” McKen­na record­ed) to bol­ster his name recog­ni­tion pri­or to run­ning for gov­er­nor in 2012. (And that’s because Eyman sub­scribes to the IOKIYAR doc­trine… It’s Okay If You’re A Repub­li­can.)

Unlike Fer­gu­son, Eyman has nev­er run for or held pub­lic office, and does­n’t seem to under­stand that not every­one is in pol­i­tics for self­ish rea­sons like he is.

There is arguably no one in Wash­ing­ton State who bet­ter per­son­i­fies greed than Tim Eyman. Those who had sus­pect­ed that Eyman was a lying, cheat­ing con artist were proved right when Eyman was infa­mous­ly caught siphon­ing large sums of mon­ey out of his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry for his own per­son­al use in ear­ly 2002.

After admit­ting that he had lied what he claimed he was­n’t raid­ing his cam­paign funds to pay him­self, Eyman declared, on the record, to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press: “I want con­tin­ue to advo­cate issues and I want to make a lot of mon­ey doing it.”

Eyman pro­ceed­ed to begin open­ly pay­ing him­self out of his cam­paign funds and also rais­ing mon­ey for a “com­pen­sa­tion fund” on an annu­al basis.

But Eyman want­ed more… and he fig­ured out how to get it.

Thanks to the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion’s inves­ti­ga­tion of that egre­gious case of con­ceal­ment I men­tioned ear­li­er, we now know for a fact that Eyman received secret kick­backs from the com­pa­ny he used to con­tract with for sig­na­ture dri­ves — Roy Ruffi­no and Eddie Agazarm’s “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions”. That enabled Eyman to prof­it twice from every cam­paign: once from the salary he took as com­pen­sa­tion for his efforts, and again via the secret kick­backs received through his bud­dy Eddie.

Eyman’s prof­i­teer­ing mind­set explains his absurd char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Fer­gu­son as a prof­i­teer. To Eyman, pol­i­tics is a means to an end: get­ting rich.

Eyman likes win­ning and also get­ting on tele­vi­sion, but whether he wins or not, he still per­son­al­ly prof­its from ped­dling ini­tia­tives. It’s been very lucra­tive for him.

Were Eyman the Attor­ney Gen­er­al, his focus would be on fig­ur­ing out how to per­son­al­ly prof­it from hold­ing the posi­tion… of that, I have no doubt.

Eyman sees Fer­gu­son rais­ing mon­ey for his cam­paign in the wake of the law­suits he’s been fil­ing (par­tic­u­lar­ly against Trump) and fig­ures that’s Fer­gu­son try­ing to line his pock­ets… because that’s what Eyman would be doing.

But Bob Fer­gu­son is not in pol­i­tics to exploit peo­ple and get rich. I know this because I know Bob Fer­gu­son. He believes in the same val­ues I do: free­dom, mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, empa­thy, pros­per­i­ty, inclusion.

Bob Fer­gu­son is some­one who takes a very dim view of the kind of behav­ior we see from Eyman. It’s why he has pri­or­i­tized enforce­ment of the state’s cam­paign finance laws as Attor­ney Gen­er­al. When a cit­i­zen com­plaint comes along, the cam­paign finance unit inves­ti­gates it. If it has mer­it and the vio­la­tions appear to be severe enough, state attor­neys file an action in Supe­ri­or Court.

Eyman isn’t the only one who has been sued. Fer­gu­son’s cam­paign finance unit has gone after the Gro­cery Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (and won a record judg­ment against them), the Free­dom Foun­da­tion, and the Port of Taco­ma, as well as can­di­dates and local par­ty orga­ni­za­tions affil­i­at­ed with both major parties.

Eyman knows full well that Fer­gu­son’s office has com­menced lit­i­ga­tion against many Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty orga­ni­za­tions and some of the state’s most promi­nent unions for fail­ing to ful­ly com­ply with the state’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws, because his pal Glen Mor­gan is behind the com­plaints that led to most of those law­suits.

The defen­dants in many of these cas­es have nego­ti­at­ed set­tle­ments with the cam­paign finance unit to avert cost­ly legal battles.

But Eyman does­n’t want to set­tle. What Eyman wants is to escape account­abil­i­ty for his past law­break­ing so he can con­tin­ue to break the law in the future. Accord­ing­ly, Eyman’s response to Fer­gu­son’s inves­ti­ga­tion and the law­suits Fer­gu­son has filed has been to stonewall, obfus­cate, and delay. At every turn.

As we saw last year when courts in Thurston and Sno­homish coun­ties ordered Eyman and com­pa­ny to pay for obstruct­ing the AG’s inves­ti­ga­tion, there is a cost to these tac­tics, and that’s why Eyman is solic­it­ing funds for legal defense.

Eyman and his attor­ney Mark Lamb have done every­thing they can to put off Eyman’s day of reck­on­ing for as long as pos­si­ble, pre­sum­ably to give Eyman more time to regain the rel­e­vance he has lost by get­ting some­thing on the ballot.

Lamb and Eyman would love to depose Fer­gu­son as part of their coun­ter­suit against the state’s main case against Eyman for pub­lic dis­clo­sure law violations.

Their efforts so far to depose Fer­gu­son have been quashed, but they haven’t giv­en up on the idea yet. Eyman is so enam­ored with the idea of depos­ing Fer­gu­son that he talks about it in his fundrais­ing solic­i­ta­tion as if it’s an immi­nent development.

It is not, but that does­n’t mat­ter to Eyman. The truth is sim­ply not impor­tant to him. It nev­er has been. What is impor­tant is fig­ur­ing out how to stay in busi­ness so Eyman can con­tin­ue to part fools from their mon­ey for years to come.