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Kenneth Smukler, the Philadelphia political consultant formerly associated with retiring U.S. Congressman Bob Brady, has asked a federal judge to dismiss election law-related charges against him involving another politician.

Smukler is facing prosecution for his alleged role in paying off one of Brady's political opponents to drop out of the 2012 Democratic primary. He has also been charged by superseding indictment with allegedly making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations to former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies' campaign in her failed 2014 bid to reclaim the seat, while obstructing the corresponding federal investigation.

In a flurry of motions filed May 25, Smukler claimed the government failed to show that he violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) related to the Margolies campaign, or that he obstructed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigation by willfully making false campaign finance filings.

Additionally, he claimed that a charge relating to violating the campaign contribution limit was barred by the statute of limitations.

Along with these motions, Smukler filed court papers claiming federal investigators violated his attorney-client privilege.

“Without any notice to Mr. Smukler or this court, the government trampled on this privilege, interviewing Karl Sandstrom, Esquire, about his protected communications with Mr. Smukler,” Smukler's attorney, Jon Fetterolf, wrote in a memorandum.

“It did so on the purported basis of a privilege waiver by candidate Marjorie Margolies—which the government knew or should have known was an ineffective and invalid waiver both as to the privilege held by Marjorie 2014, the campaign committee, and the privilege held by Mr. Smukler,” the memorandum continued. “And now confronted with the defects in its waiver, the government's belated attempt to avail itself of the crime-fraud exception cannot retroactively excuse the deliberate and improper intrusion into privileged communications for the purpose of obtaining an indictment against Mr. Smukler.”

Fetterolf declined to comment.

This filing follows Smukler's failure to convince the judge presiding over his case to throw out evidence obtained from a March 2017 FBI raid of Smukler's home.

Smukler argued that the FBI's search warrant was faulty because a federal agent intentionally omitted the fact that the FEC had previously investigated and dismissed one of the claims against the Margolies campaign alleged in the search warrant affidavit.

However, U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said that the allegations in the affidavit went beyond the scope of the FEC's inquiry into Margolies' 2014 campaign finances.

The superseding indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia on March 20 restated the original charges against Smukler involving a $90,000 payment to Brady's opponent, former Philadelphia Judge Jimmie Moore, and added new charges alleging that Smukler used his companies to inject cash into Margolies' losing campaign in the 2014 Democratic congressional primary, while also having false financial reports filed to the FEC to hide the illicit payments made to the campaign.

According to the indictment, the campaign was running out of money to pay for primary election expenses, but Smukler directed the campaign treasurer to continue purchasing goods and services. Prosecutors allege Smukler used his companies, Black and Blue Media and InfoVoter Technologies, to funnel money to the campaign while it was active and also after it had lost the election in order to pay off its debts. The alleged contributions exceeded the limits set by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 for individual donors during a single election cycle, the indictment said.

Smukler was first indicted Oct. 24. While the case against Smukler, who pleaded not guilty to the initial charges, is ongoing, the investigation has netted guilty pleas from former Brady aide and political consultant Don “D.A.” Jones, Moore and Moore's former campaign manager, Carolyn Cavaness. It is not clear how these guilty pleas might affect the case against Smukler.

Brady was never charged and prosecutors have since missed their window to indict him.