Posts Tagged ‘Michelle Bachmann’
The Michele Bachmann Campaign Probe, Explained
Tuesday, 21 May 2013 05:00
No Comments


Last Friday, news broke that the FBI is investigating allegations that the 2012 presidential campaign of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) violated federal laws by not disclosing payments to an Iowa state senator, improperly coordinated with her PAC, and tried to silence whistleblowing staffers. Bachmann has responded by pointing out that the allegations, which first surfaced in January, don’t directly accuse her of any wrongdoing. Still, some political observers believe that the allegations could spell the end her congressional career when she faces off against the same Democrat she narrowly defeated in 2012. (Read more…)

How did this all begin? In January, Peter Waldron, Bachmann’s former national field coordinator, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Waldron, a Florida evangelist who did outreach work to Christian conservatives for Bachmann in Iowa, alleged that her campaign violated federal statutes in five separate incidents:

  • Deliberately concealing monthly payments of about $7,500 to Bachmann’s former Iowa chairman, Republican state Sen. Kent Sorenson, over the course of about seven months, in an attempt to dodge a state ethics rule prohibiting senators from doing paid campaign work. Waldron alleged that Bachmann’s political action committee, Michele PAC, funneled undisclosed payments to Sorenson through the fundraising firm C&M Strategies (PDF).
  • Improperly using Michele PAC to pay C&M Strategies $40,000 for consulting work while the firm’s owner, Guy Short, served as Bachmann’s national political director in the two months leading up to the Iowa caucuses. PACs can’t get involved in actual campaigns. Short responded to the allegation by claiming that he was simply a campaign volunteer and was paid separately for his consulting work.
  • Improperly coordinating with the National Fiscal Conservative PAC to set up TV and radio ad buys. The National Fiscal Conservative PAC is a so-called hybrid PAC that combines a super-PAC and traditional PAC provided they keep their fiscal affairs separate. The super-PAC part can raise unlimited funds but is prohibited from using them to coordinate with a candidate’s campaign.
  • Violating whistleblower protection laws. In July 2012, former campaign staff member Barb Heki filed a lawsuit against Bachmann and campaign aides, including Short and Sorenson, alleging that Sorenson stole an email list of Christian home-school advocates from her private computer to use for the campaign. As of January, several firms and former campaign staff, including Heki, said they had not been fully reimbursed for their work on the campaign. Waldron believes that Heki may have not been paid in retaliation for her lawsuit.
  • “Extortion.” When Waldron asked Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, to help resolve the issue of unpaid staff, the campaign responded by having those staff members sign nondisclosure forms requiring them to consult with campaign lawyers before talking to police or other lawyers about campaign activities. That, Waldron suggested, amounted to an effort to sabotage Heki’s lawsuit and criminal complaint.

Continue Reading »

 
Watch: Pre-convention Tea Party rally in Tampa
Sunday, 26 August 2012 18:00
No Comments

The opening of the Republican National Convention may have been postponed because of Tropical Storm Isaac, but the Tea Party faithful are soldiering on in the teeth of the storm.

The Tea Party Unity Rally 2012 is due to be held as scheduled at The River at Tampa Bay Church between 7:00 and 9:00 PM on Sunday. The event is sponsored by a number of different tea party groups and will feature Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, right-wing radio personality Neal Boortz, and others.

(Read more…)

This livestream is from TheTeaParty.net. (Free registration required.)

Watch live streaming video from theteapartynet at livestream.com

615/560

AFP Photo/Jewel Samad

 
Top Romney adviser Bolton calls Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witch hunt ‘legitimate’
Wednesday, 25 July 2012 09:46
No Comments

Appearing on a radio show on Tuesday, John Bolton, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s top foreign policy adviser, defended Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s (R-MN) call for an anti-Muslim witch hunt investigation to determine whether U.S. officials have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

(Read more…)

“What I think these members of Congress have done is simply raise the question to a variety of inspectors general in key agencies,” Bolton told former Bachmann campaign adviser Frank Gaffney, the man most frequently credited with inspiring Bachmann’s latest anti-Muslim conspiracy. “Are your departments following their own security clearance guidelines, are they adhering to the standards that presumably everybody who seeks a security clearance should have to go through, are they making special exemptions? What is wrong with raising the question? Why is even asking whether we are living up to our standards a legitimate area of congressional oversight, why has that generated this criticism? I’m just mystified by it.”

The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations defended Bachmann’s call for an anti-Muslim witch hunt after conspiracy talk show host Glenn Beck, Republican talk show host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) took Bachmann’s side, even though other top Republicans like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Reps. John Boehner (R-OH) and Mike Rogers (R-MI) have publicly come out against her comments.

And while Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), who both sit with Bachmann on the House Intelligence Committee, joined the chorus of criticism on Wednesday, they might not matter as much as they’d hope thanks to the Romney campaign’s top foreign policy adviser calling an anti-Muslim witch hunt a “legitimate area of congressional oversight.”

After Bachmann and four other Republican members of the House wrote letters asking for an investigation of potential ties between Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the new ruling party in Egypt, Clinton’s convoy in Egypt was targeted by a crowd of angry protesters who pelted her car with tomatoes. Abedin also received a death threat and subsequently took on security personnel.

Despite the fact that the Republican Party’s last presidential nominee called Bachmann’s allegations “unwarranted,” “unfounded,” “specious and degrading,” that same Republican Party just four years later appears to be moving in a completely different direction and embracing what both The New York Times and the Center for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) call “McCarthyism.”

“The honorable public service of these individuals deserves better treatment than political theatrics characterized by half-truths, overblown accusations and guilt by association,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad explained to Bachmann in a letter sent last week.

“The Muslim Brotherhood can’t even penetrate the Egyptian government,” Ibrahim Ali Iraqi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Egypt, said in response to Bachmann’s claims.

The audio clips below are from “Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney,” broadcast Tuesday, July 24, 2012.


——

(H/T: Right Wing Watch)

Photo: Screenshot via YouTube.