Sex and Taxes: What the Romney Returns and the Edwards Precedent Say About Political Slush Funds
Bill Allison/sunlight foundation
2012-09-11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-sunlight-foundation/sex-and-taxes_b_1874296.html...
The group further claims that they secured years of Romney's returns, and has offered to sell them to whomever can come up with $1 million in an Internet currency known as bitcoin.
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Though Romney's campaign certainly has enough money to pay the ransom, it's not clear that blackmail is a legitimate campaign expense, and in any case having a million-dollar expenditure in bitcoin currency show up on a campaign finance report could be an even more damaging story than having the returns released. The same disclosure would be required if the Republican National Committee or a Super PAC like Restore Our Future paid the ransom. But suppose a wealthy donor -- an Edward Conard (who tried to use an LLC to anonymously donate $1 million to Restore Our Future) or a Sheldon Adelson (who has devoted a small fortune to supporting Republican candidates) or the Koch Brothers -- decided to pay the ransom. For the sake of argument, let's also assume that they do so without telling the Romney campaign in advance, informing them only after their bitcoin transaction that the matter is taken care of.
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About the sunlight foundation:
The Sunlight Foundation harnesses the Internet and social Web to shine more light on Congress.
Founded in January 2006, the Sunlight Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) educational organization, supports, develops and deploys new Internet technologies to make information about Congress and the federal government more accessible to the American people. Through its projects and grant-making, Sunlight serves as a catalyst to create greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government.
