Giffords, a non-profit gun-control group founded by former Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, accuses the NRA and Rosendale of illegally coordinating campaigns during Montana’s 2018 U.S. Senate race, which Rosendale lost to Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.

Specifically, Giffords accuses the NRA and Rosendale of orchestrating ad buying through a half-dozen shell companies. The alleged benefit to Rosendale is $383,196 in illegally coordinated expenditures. The federal lawsuit was filed Nov. 2 in Washington D.C. 

Among the evidence cited by Giffords is a 2018 interview in which Rosendale says he was in communication with Chris Cox, political director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action about the group’s Montana campaign plans.

“The Supreme Court confirmations, that’s what sent the NRA over the line,” Rosendale tells the interviewer, “Because in ’12, with Denny, they stayed out. They stayed out of Montana, but Chris Cox told me, he’s like, ‘We’re, we’re going to be in this race.’” The Denny mentioned in the quote is Republican Denny Rehberg, who in 2012 ran unsuccessfully for Senate against Tester.

Lee Montana Newspapers contacted Rosendale’s D.C. office Nov. 5, asking to speak directly to the congressman about allegations stemming from his 2018 Senate campaign. The representative’s spokesman, Jeremy Crane, deferred all questions to Shelby DeMars, manager of Rosendale’s 2020 House bid. DeMars had no role in the Senate campaign targeted by Giffords’ lawsuit.

In 2018, when audio of Rosendale’s recorded interview was reported by The Daily Beast, Rosendale’s campaign said that what was really caught on audio was Rosendale seeking an NRA endorsement, which the NRA said was all it ever discussed with Rosendale.

A few weeks after Rosendale’s 2018 interview, the NRA began targeting Tester in Montana on the Democrat’s confirmation votes for U.S. Supreme Court candidates, votes the NRA said were bad for gun owners.

Rosendale began running ads targeting Tester’s Supreme Court confirmation votes as bad for the Second Amendment, as well.

But the NRA and Rosendale ads weren’t merely similar in subject matter. At one point, the person placing ads at a Montana TV station for the NRA was the same person placing ads for Rosendale. Giffords details the ad placements in the lawsuit.

A review of political ad records for Montana TV stations confirmed Giffords’ account. The ads are available for public review online at the Federal Communications Commission website.

Giffords accuses Rosendale and the NRA of using shell companies to hide campaign coordination. The first two companies are ad producers, Starboard and OnMessage are companies located at the same address and led by the same people. When industry awards were given out for political ads, OnMessage was nominated, and received awards for work done by Starboard.

The NRA ads were produced by Starboard. Rosendale’s ads were produced by OnMessage.

The ads were then placed by another company, National Media, doing business under two different names, Red Eagle and AMAG, short for American Media Advocacy Group.

“There were two layers to the coordination scheme. One was coordination over the production of the ads. And then the other layer was regarding the placement of the ads,” said Brendan Fischer, of the Campaign Legal Fund. CLS is representing Giffords in court. “Both of those are forms of coordination. Both are illegal. It matters because the NRA can only spend unlimited amounts of money supporting Rosendale, if it’s operating independently of Rosendale. If it’s coordinating its spending with Rosendale’s campaign, then it can’t spend unlimited amounts of money, including secret money.”

Campaign coordination can work a couple of different ways. A third party can make political attacks a candidate would rather not be associated with. The third party’s ads might be coordinated to complement the candidate’s ads. Both examples are illegal.

“It could be, and we documented some of this in the complaint, that the Rosendale campaign is going to be running ads on these three stations, and then the NRA is going to be running ads on these other three stations,” Fischer said. “They make sure that the NRA dollars and Rosendale dollars are going the furthest. They’re hitting viewers at different times. There’s any number of ways this can manifest itself.”

Fischer is CLC’s director of federal reform. He said he’s never seen a coordination scheme like the one the NRA and Rosendale are accused of orchestrating. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of unlimited spending by Super PACs and dark money groups, campaigns have found ways to work closely with independent entities. Ad production companies and companies placing ads for the NRA and Rosendale is more complex. Giffords calls the construct illegal.

The Giffords lawsuit targets campaigns by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri,  as well as Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. All told, the full amount of money allegedly coordinated amounts to $35 million.

If Giffords prevails, the defendants will have to report the coordination to the Federal Elections Commission and likely pay the amount of money coordinated to the U.S. Treasury.