Posted by AzBlieMeanie:
Let this story be a lesson for the lazy mainstream media — you are going to have to rediscover how to do investigative journalism and rediscover your "watchdog of democracy" purpose envisioned by the Founding Fathers in this new era of Citizens United corporate money in politics.
It is not acceptable for you to continue your lazy stenographer's role of simply quoting what the candidates say and superficially reporting their fundraising numbers as some gauge of public support. You are going to have to comb through those financial disclosure reports and try to identify the actual contributors, some of whom may be "straw" donors contributing money in the name of someone else, which is illegal — especially if it turns out the donor is a foreign contributor, which is also illegal.
Michael Isikoff at NBC/MSNBC shows you how it is done. He reports that a mystery company that pumped $1 million into a political committee backing Mitt Romney has been dissolved just months after it was formed, leaving few clues as to who was behind one of the biggest contributions yet of the 2012 presidential campaign. Firm gives $1 million to pro-Romney group, dissolves:
The existence of the million-dollar donation — as gleaned from campaign and corporate records obtained by NBC News — provides a vivid example of how secret campaign cash is being funneled in ever more circuitous ways into the political system.
The company, W Spann LLC, was formed in March by a Boston lawyer who specializes in estate tax planning for “high net worth individuals,” according to corporate records and the lawyer’s bio on her firm’s website.
The corporate records provide no information about the owner of the firm, its address or its type of business.
Six weeks later, W Spann LLC made its million-dollar donation to Restore Our Future — a new so-called “super PAC” started by a group of former Romney political aides to boost the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential bid. It listed its address as being in a midtown Manhattan office building that has no record of such a tenant.
The Boston lawyer, Cameron Casey, dissolved the company on July 12 — two weeks before Restore Our Future made its first campaign filing of the year reporting the donation from the now-nonexistent company, the corporate records show.
* * *
If the only purpose of W Spann’s formation was to contribute to the pro-Romney group, “There is a real issue of it being just a subterfuge” and that could raise a "serious" legal issue, Noble said. Even if that is not the case, he added, “What you have here is a roadmap for how people can hide their identities” when making political contributions.
* * *
The hefty size of the W Spann contribution, and its murky origins, highlights the growing prominence of groups like Restore Our Future, one of a wave of super PACs that are amassing hefty campaign war chests this year — unrestricted by any limits on how much they can collect from corporations and other wealthy donors.
* * *
Last week, Restore Our Future filed its first report of 2012, disclosing that it had received $12.2 million during the first six months of the year. Among the contributors: four donors who contributed $1 million apiece, including John Paulson, the Wall Street hedge fund kingpin who made billions betting against the housing market, and two corporate partnerships listed at the Provo, Utah, address of Steven J. Lund, a former chief executive of Nu Skin Enterprises and a longtime Romney backer who has been a leader in the Mormon Church.
But the most intriguing of the million-dollar donations was from W Spann LLC. Its address was listed on the Restore Our Future campaign report as 590 Madison Ave., a 43-story, ultra-modern office building in the heart of midtown Manhattan.
But there is no public listing for any company called W Spann LLC at 590 Madison. A top executive of Minskoff Equities, the firm that manages the building, told NBC News that he had “never heard of” W Spann and that his management firm has no record of any such tenant.
According to records obtained by NBC, W Spann LLC filed a “certificate of formation” with the Delaware Secretary of State’s Office on March 15, but provided no further information about its owners or type of business. The only address listed was that of a Wilmington registered agent service, Corporation Service Co., which provides such services for many companies. The company declines as a matter of policy to answer any questions about its clients, according to one of its agents.
W Spann then made its million-dollar contribution on April 28 and filed a “certificate of cancellation” on July 11, effectively dissolving as a corporate entity, the records show.
The “authorized person” that filed the W Spann LLC incorporation papers and then canceled them was Casey, the Boston estate tax planner lawyer, who specializes in “wealth transfer strategies” as an associate in Ropes & Gray’s Private Client Group’s trust and estate practice for high end clients, according to her biography on the Ropes & Gray’s website.
One of the Rope & Gray’s longtime clients is Bain Capital, the investment firm formerly headed by Romney. It is also one of a number of major companies — including UBS, IBM and Cemex — that have offices at 590 Madison, the address listed for W Spann.
* * *
Campaign finance experts say the use of an opaque company like W Spann to donate large sums of money into a political campaign shows how post-Watergate disclosure laws are now being increasingly circumvented.
Much of this, the experts say, is because of last year’s Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case that allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts on political advocacy, including giving to supposedly “independent” super PACs like Restore Our Future. That ruling also opened the door for newly created nonprofit groups — such as Crossroads GPS, started by Karl Rove — that spent tens of millions of dollars on attack ads during last year’s campaign without disclosing any donors.
“This is sham disclosure. It’s a barrier to disclosure,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a Washington think-tank that specializes in campaign funding issues, when asked about the W Spann LLC donation to Restore Our Future.
It’s one more example, he said, of how American political campaigns have gone “back to the future” and to the “pre-Watergate days (of 1972) when Richard Nixon was raising unlimited amounts of money without disclosure.”
We have the "felonious five" of the U.S. Supreme Court to thank for this.
Ben Smith at Politico makes this astute observation. More secret money – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com:
This is more or less how money moves around Russian politics. For all we know, the Delaware corporation is owned by another corporation, registered in the Cayman Islands, with its directors another set of anonymous lawyers. Its money could come from, say, the government of Pakistan, which has recently shown an interest in illegal contributions to American pols.
It will take reporters who actually do their job to find out.
UPDATE: The denials by "Mittens" Romney's former firm Baine Capital turn out to be a half-truth. Mystery Romney donor is identified:
The mystery donor whose $1 million contribution set off a furor over secrecy in politics has been identified as a longtime supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Edward Conard, a former executive at Bain Capital, a private-equity firm that Romney helped found, gave the contribution to a pro-Romney super-PAC called Restore Our Future through a shell corporation, W Spann.
Conard said in a statement to Politico that he made the anonymous donation "after consulting prominent legal counsel regarding the transaction and based on my understanding that the contribution would comply with applicable laws." Conard said he has asked the group to amend its disclosure filings to list him as the donor.
* * *
Election watchdog groups argued that W Spann may have violated contribution rules banning the use of straw donors to evade disclosure. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 filed complaints about the case Friday with the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department.
Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, said official inquiries should move ahead despite Conard's decision to come forward.
"The FEC and DOJ will still have to determine whether the actions to date violated federal law and, if so, pursue appropriate penalties to deter such conduct in the future," he said in a statement Saturday.