 In last week's post, "By The Numbers: The MN GOP's Cooked Books, we took a quick look at just one part o' the cooked books: how the GOP owed a whole bunch o' dough to a vendor it hired to help it comply with it's FEC troubles.
And seriously, you can't make this up! The MN GOP was in trouble with the Federal Elections Comission; argued to the FEC that the FEC should be lenient because it wanted to clean up it's mess and would hire a vendor to do just that - and then ends up owing the vendor more than they reported to the FEC!!!
Link here to read The Tostenson Memo (Tostenson is a former MN GOP Employee) that is the basis of CREW's FEC Complaint - a complaint which was filed in 2007.
Today's bombshells (again) are reported via MPR's Tom Scheck:
Government watchdog groups say MNGOP should face fines
By Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
Two government watchdog groups are calling on state and federal regulators to fine the Minnesota Republican Party for violating campaign finance laws.
Republican Party officials had hoped that their financial problems would be put to rest once they disclosed their troubled finances last week. That disclosure prompted more questioning from a government watchdog group that already won legal victories against the party.
.
.
"We seem to be seeing a repeat of the same kind of problems with the Republican Party's finances," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington D.C.
.
.
"It's a black and white issue," Sloan said. "The FEC will have no question but that the Minnesota GOP has violated the conciliation agreement. The only question is what exactly will the FEC do about it and how seriously will they take it."
Republicans also have problems at the state level. Mike Dean with Common Cause Minnesota says he filed a complaint to the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board on Thursday asking them to look into several alleged campaign finance violations. Dean said the Republican Party of Minnesota conspired to circumvent the state's disclosure laws. He said the party didn't disclose that they were helping manage a fund aimed to finance the 2010 recount.
(More, at MPR.org)
".seem to be seeing a repeat..."
Gee - why is that?
Well, I'd suggest it's because of what I often say: Today's GOP is morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest, and institutionally corrupt.
As has been pointed out before, one person pointing that out was then-RNC Chair Michael Steele: "You have absolutely no reason - none - to trust our words or our actions at this point.".
And here's why the MN GOP is not going to get away with sweeping this one under the rug: there's two groups going after 'em for their corruption now: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - which again, nailed 'em last time, and Common Cause MN.
The GOP's financial problems are not going away.
Stay tuned!
(Graphic by Tildology) |
