James Bopp, the Indiana attorney who won the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission case, interrogated Montana’s top political cop for nearly seven hours last week, comparing Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl to a racist Southern sheriff and rebuking his crackdown on conservative groups that have been accused of sabotaging elections with mounds of secret cash.
“It used to be that sheriffs would beat up black people … just because they arrested them, and then they would say, ‘We, of course, follow the law,'” Bopp said at one point, unsatisfied with one of Motl’s answers. “So, we’re trying to find out the tests you apply.”