A conservative filmmaker barely managed to escape punishment by the Federal Election Commission in February after a complaint was entered about his 2012 anti-Obama documentary, Dreams From My Real Father.
Joel Gilbert financed the film himself through his company Highway 61 Entertainment. Its subject matter set out to show that Barack Obama's real father is actually communist propagandist and Marxist Frank Marshall Davis, who was mentioned in Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, only as "Frank." Obama later revealed that his mentor "Frank" was Davis; the man who "schooled" him on how to "get used to" white racism.
Prior to the 2012 re-election of Obama, Gilbert distributed the film for free throughout several swing states. Because of this, a progressive activist, Loren Collins, filed an FEC complaint in 2014 in an attempt to force Gilbert to disclose his donors who made it possible to deliver the movies to voters' mailboxes.
The FEC finally got around to the vote in February and it was a split 3-3 decision; right down the middle of the commission's Republican/Democrat divide. With that decision, Gilbert's film was considered "press" -- exactly the same category Gilbert's liberal documentarian counterparts, like Michael Moore, enjoy.
Gilbert told The Washington Post that Collins's complaint was nothing more than "liberal fascism" and considers himself a media entity, like Fox News or Moore. He added:
We have a situation where investors, if they have an opinion that radicals don’t like, could be targeted. I’m honestly shocked that the three Democratic commissioners voted against this and against settled law. And obviously, I think the American people would be better off had they seen my film.
From The Post:
Conservatives have celebrated the decision and shared Gilbert's confusion that it took so long. “Freedom of the press isn't so free when three government commissars vote to punish a filmmaker for distributing a documentary film,” said Lee E. Goodman, a Republican commissioner, in a friendly interview with the Washington Examiner. “Conservative documentary films have faced tough sledding at the FEC, no matter how the films are distributed.”
The commissioners wrote of their decision:
Although the current record before the commission does not conclusively resolve to what extent the challenged distribution strategy may have marketed and promoted the film — that is, legitimate press activity — there is fair reason to conclude that the undertaking was a marketing effort. And to answer that question definitively may require substantial investigation into the business judgment of the media entities involved, an inquiry at odds with the interests that the exemption protects.
Dinesh D'Souza is another conservative filmmaker who comes to mind as one who was actually sentenced to eight months in federal confinement and five years of probation for violating campaign finance law's after his film, 2016: Obama's America. (He had gone over his personal contribution amount by just $20,000!)
So, D'Souza serves time after producing an anti-Obama film (even though many others have made donations to Democratic campaigns with many more zeroes in violation of the same law he was convicted under) and now Gilbert barely escapes punishment over his anti-Obama film.
Notice a theme?
