Fox Legal Analyst: Obama Staffer May Have Violated FEC Regs by 'Coordinating' Attacks in Anti-Romney Ads

Blaze readers at this point know all about the pro-Obama ad tying Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to the death of former GST Steel employee Joe Soptic's wife.

Since the release of the ad, the reaction from both sides has been a thick mixture of shock and disgust.

But here’s something interesting: In her attempt to kinda'-sorta' distance the Obama campaign from the clearly fraudulent ad, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter claimed she didn’t know the details of Soptic’s situation.

“Is this ad accurate? Is it fair?” CNN’s John Berman asked Cutter during a Wednesday interview.

“I don’t know the facts about when his wife got sick, or the facts about his health insurance,” Cutter replied.

Hold on there, Stephanie. There’s a problem with your claim:

Yeah, that conference call is from May. Cutter knew about Soptic. In fact, as we’ve mentioned before on TheBlaze, Soptic has been working the anti-Romney beat for some time now.

But wait! There’s more! Apparently, in denying she knew anything about Soptic’s situation, Cutter may have violated Federal Election Commission regulations.

“Now it comes out that it appears Ms. Cutter is not telling the truth,” Fox News' legal analyst Peter Johnson said during a Thursday morning broadcast of "Fox & Friends."

"Fox and Friends" guest host Alisyn Camerota pointed out that although Cutter is familiar with Soptic, it doesn’t necessarily mean she knew anything about his ailing wife.

“That’s not running afoul of the law, is it,” Camerota said.

“Oh, it might be,” said Johnson. “Under the Federal Election Commission there could be civil penalties and more.”

As some of you may remember from the Republican presidential primaries, independent Political Action Committees are not to have any form of coordination with campaigns. But if Cutter was working with Soptic all the way back in May, and he’s now appearing in vicious campaign ads …

“In my view, that quote -- that tape recording -- shows a real awareness that they were coordinating this thing,” said Johnson.

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