Some of the most negative and brutal ads that were aired in the run up to Saturday's Nevada Republican Caucuses were those paid for by an entity known as 'Restore Our Future.' The entity ran similar ads in Florida, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa prior to their primaries.
Restore Our Future is known as a 'Super PAC' and is connected to GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
When the Supreme Court ruled last year that corporations can contribute funds to political campaigns through these committees, corporations have freely and legally used Super PACs to make large donations to candidates.
But it is illegal to mask a donation by making a contribution in the name of another person.
Thus, in August of last year two government watchdog groups filed a complaint with the FEC asking the Justice Department to investigate whether or not three corporations that donated to Restore our Future had masked their contributions.
The three corporations were listed as 'million dollar donors' to the Romney Super PAC--W. Spann LLC, Eli Publishing, and F8 LLC. When the complaint was filed a man by the name of Edward W. Conrad came forward to disclose that he is the face behind the corporation, W. Spann LLC.
According to Politico, Conrad requested that Restore Our Future change its paperwork to list him, not W. Spann LLC, as the million dollar donor.
The Romney Super PAC complied and made the requested change.
According to Open Secrets, it turns out that Conrad is one of the main players at Bain Capital, the Romney holding company that was the center of controvesy last month over its practice of down sizing and/or closing vulnerable companies. To be fair, Bain Capital has also started some highly successful corporations that have provided multi-thousands of jobs for Americans, such as Staples.
Not only did Conrad hide his identity by donating to Romney through a corporation, but so did million dollar donors Steve Lund of Eli Publishing and Jeremy Blickenstaff of F8 LLC.
Federal law prohibits such contributions without full disclosure of the identities of the specific donors. And the fact that each of the individuals named in the complaint has close ties to Mitt Romney does not give the appearance of a clean operation.
The president of one of the government watchdog groups that brought the complaint, Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, stated,
There are now three $1 million donors who apparently hid their true identities from the American people when they provided huge contributions to Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney Super PAC.
Both the secrecy and the size of these contributions to Restore Our Future are extremely dangerous to the interests of the American people. Secret and unlimited contributions in American politics invariably result in scandal and corruption...
...The so-called Presidential Super PACs that are each “independently” supporting a presidential candidate are the new and dangerous campaign finance scam in the 2012 elections.
These Super PACs are nothing more than shadow arms of a presidential campaign that provide a vehicle for massive circumvention and evasion of the contribution limits applicable to donations made directly to a presidential candidate’s campaign committee.
Apparently very little will be done to stem the tide of wealthy donors hiding behind corporations to mask their contributions to political candidates. For all of his talk about the need to clean up the system, Barack Obama, for example, is perhaps the most successful candidate in history when it comes to utilizing Super PACs.
Reports indicate that Obama is well on his way toward collecting one billion dollars for his 2012 campaign, much of which has come from his Super PAC, 'Priorities USA Action,' which, according to law, must disclose all donors.
But a top contributor to the Obama Super PAC is Obama's 501c(4) corporation called 'Priorities USA,' which is not required by law to disclose where the money comes from.
It is highly unlikely that there will be a serious investigation into the Romney masked donors as long as Obama is the top beneficiary of such practices.
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