The Obama campaign has some very strong words for the American Leadership Project, the 527 that was set up to run ads on Hillary Clinton's behalf. In a conference call with reporters today, campaign general counsel Bob Bauer asserted quite confidently that the ALP is an illegal group, set up as a "rescue operation" to circumvent campaign finance statutes and FEC regulations by raising unlimited amounts of money to run ads for Hillary.

In a move that suggests he might be trying to frighten donors away from even contributing to the effort, Bauer went so far as to say that the donors to the ALP, by helping to organize this group with contributions of as much as $100,000 each, were also going to be legally liable and subject to civil and criminal investigation by the government.

"This is not a case where there's room for argument. This is not a case where they'll be spared by some version of Philadelphia lawyering," Bauer said. "This is absolutely a cold, calculated move to violate the law for the benefit of the candidate, and to assume that any penalty will be so deferred into the future that the immediate benefits can be gained now without consequence."