Group wants investigation of Super PACs

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/07/10341705-group-wants-investigation-of-obama-romney-super-pacs

Group wants investigation of Obama, Romney Super PACs***

UPDATED AT 1:15 PM WITH COMMENT FROM PRIORITIES USA ***

By NBC’s Michael Isikoff
A top campaign watchdog group today is calling for a Justice Department criminal investigation into Super PACs supporting President Obama and GOP front runner Mitt Romney.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group sharply critical of Super PACs, said Priorities USA Action, the Obama Super PAC, and Restore Our Future, a similar group backing Romney, are both "illegal operations" because of their close ties to the candidates they are backing.

In the wake of reports that the White House has signed off on plans to urge wealthy donors to contribute to the group, Wertheimer said he is writing a letter to the Justice Department today urging criminal probes of both groups.

"In order to believe that the Super PACs supporting President Obama and Mitt Romney are 'independent' from the presidential campaigns they are supporting, you must believe in the tooth fairy," Wertheimer said.

Bill Burton, Obama's former deputy press secretary and 2008 campaign spokesman, set up Priorities USA Action last year along with another former Obama political aide, Sean Sweeney. Burton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Restore Our Future, which has spent millions in the GOP primary so far, was set up by former Romney aides Charlie Spies, who was Romney’s general counsel during his 2008 bid, and Carl Forti, who was Romney’s political director. Forti is also the political director for American Crossroads.

The White House plan to steer wealthy donors to give money to Priorities USA Action was disclosed in a blog posting on the Obama campaign website, saying that the move was needed to "neutralize the avalanche of special interest spending" being mounted on the GOP side to defeat President Obama.

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[Deleted]

If that sort of stuff is going on, it should be investigated.

[cme1201]

The White House plan to steer wealthy donors to give money to Priorities USA Action was disclosed in a blog posting on the Obama campaign website, saying that the move was needed to "neutralize the avalanche of special interest spending" being mounted on the GOP side to defeat President Obama.

Obama has raised 2 twice the money of Romney!

$139,526,311 to $57,112,767

Come on Man!

elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance

[zipity]

Although it was played out as a comic sketch, anyone who watched Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart as they transferred management of Colbert's "Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow" super pac, understands just how weak the rules governing super pacs are. People creating and managing a super pac can be best friends or even partners with the candidate. As long as the actions of the pac are not 'coordinated' with the candidate, or more to the point no one can prove that the pac is coordinating with the candidate, pacs can do whatever they please and be managed by anyone. If you look at all the pacs working today, they are mainly funded by about 20 multi-millionaires/billionaires. It can easily be argued that those 20 individuals will have almost direct control over who wins the 2012 election. This decision will go down in history as the worst and most dangerous decision ever handed down by the SCOTUS.

[Deleted]

I suspect that SCOTUS has done way dumber stuff over the years (Dred Scott comes to mind), but I'm with you that it was a terrible decision. And I do think Stephen Colbert deserves a little credit for calling attention to just how messed up this system is.

[Deleted]

"If you look at all the pacs working today, they are mainly funded by about 20 multi-millionaires/billionaires."

Are you sure about that? If that were true, why would they even need the super-PACs. They could just say and do whatever they want.

[zipity]

Sure of the number '20' no, it may be 40-60. Do a search on the largest contributors to the super pacs. You'll find candidate's friends, relatives and business partners who are all using the super pac to get around the $2500 limit on direct donations to a candidate. These people are donating 6 and 7 figures and that money is clearly being used to parrot candidate's positions. It's freedom of speech that 99.999999% (and that's probably short more than a few 9s) of American citizens will never have access too.

[handyman2]

You can bet those putting money into super pacs are not doing so out of their love for a particular candidate. Somewhere down the line they expect something in return. The other thing it gives the candidate plausable deny ability. Just look back at the Republican campaign so far.

[Deleted]

I'll be interested to see how this plays out. If I was wrong about this issue, I'll be the first to admit it.