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Update: John McCain for Sale: The K Street Candidate
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Washington Post published a front page investigative report on Saturday suggesting possible unlawful coordination between the McCain campaign and an independent political committee:
"For weeks, Republican presidential candidate John McCain had been hammered for supporting the Air Force’s February decision to award a $40 billion contract for refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman and its European partner. Democrats, labor unions and others blamed the senator for a deal they say could move tens of thousands of jobs abroad.
McCain’s advisers wanted to strike back against key Democratic critics. But they did not mount an expensive advertising campaign to defend the candidate’s position. They called a tax-exempt nonprofit closely aligned with the senator from Arizona, seeking information and help.
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) partnered with Northrop and one of its consultants to produce a vitriolic advertising campaign defending the tanker deal.
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Although the campaign and the group deny any cooperation, CAGW’s willingness to jump into the tanker controversy illustrates what some experts describe as potentially improper political activity by nonprofits, an issue that is gaining attention as the presidential contest heats up.
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CAGW’s advertising campaign falls into a murkier space. The group’s work on the Northrop deal offered indirect support of McCain on a highly controversial issue while costing his campaign nothing. It never explicitly mentioned McCain’s name.
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Because of their tax-exempt status, nonprofits, or 501(c)3s, are not supposed to engage in political activity. They are allowed, however, to set up a separate political arm — known as a 501(c)4 — that may donate money to candidates and lobby on policy issues as long as political activity is not its primary purpose. The Internal Revenue Service is charged with enforcing the rules.
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Formed in 1984, CAGW has long promoted McCain’s image as a taxpayer advocate. Since 2006, the nonprofit’s board of directors has included Orson Swindle, who also works on veterans issues as a volunteer for the McCain campaign.
CAGW has a lobbying arm, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, that has twice supported McCain for president. Its PAC has donated $11,000 in cash to McCain or a PAC under his control since 2004 — 20 times as much cash as it has given any other candidate, records show.
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A new McCain policy on lobbying activity by his aides prohibits campaign officials from participating in any political group known as a 527, "or other independent entity that makes public communications that support or oppose any presidential candidate." The campaign did not respond directly to a question about whether the policy applies to Swindle, who is on the boards of CAGW and its lobbying arm, which endorsed McCain."
This follows closely on the heels of the reported possible unlawful coordination between McCain campaign advisers Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, and another "independent" political committee, Vets for Freedom, from which Sens. Lieberman and Graham requested leave from their positions as directors last week after the group aired attack ads against Senator Barack Obama.
The McCain campaign conflicts of interest policy actually requires these individuals to resign from the McCain campaign, not to take a leave of absence from the independent political committee.
This again demonstrates what I have previously said: "Mr. Campaign Finance Reform" is a complete and total fraud. McCain’s campaign finance reforms applied to everyone else but him; he is somehow exempt from his own rules. And the McCain campaign’s so-called zero tolerance (sic) conflicts of interest policy is so chock full of loopholes for his favored advisers that it is meaningless.
