Can you say: "Snowball's chance in hell"?
Posted on 05/14/2004 9:29:22 AM PDT by chance33_98
Sharpton Must Return $100K in Matching Funds; NLPC Welcomes FEC Action
To: National Desk
Contact: Ken Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center, 703-237-1970, Web: http://www.nlpc.org
WASHINGTON, May 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) today welcomed yesterday's reported action by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) requiring Al Sharpton to return $100,000 that he has received in federal matching funds.
NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm stated, "We are delighted that the FEC has acted to deny taxpayer money for Sharpton's presidential campaign. As we have documented, there exist massive irregularities in the financing of his campaign."
NLPC has filed two formal FEC Complaints against Sharpton, the second of which was extensively amended.
The first, filed on April 18, 2003, resulted in a Conciliation Agreement under which Sharpton had to pay a $5,500 fine for late filing of disclosure documents. The FEC also cited to Sharpton the requirement that a potential candidate who becomes a candidate must report all previous contributions and expenditures on the first disclosure report.
The second Complaint, filed on Feb. 2, 2004, cited information that Sharpton may have visited over 100 cities related to his presidential campaign in 2002 and 2003. This extensive political travel is not reflected anywhere in Sharpton's FEC filings.
An amendment to the Feb. 2 Complaint was filed on Feb. 5 to reflect information contained in a Feb.3 Village Voice article by Wayne Barrett titled "Sleeping With the GOP: A Bush Covert Operative Takes Over Sharpton's Campaign." ( http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0405/barrett.php )
The amended Complaint asked the FEC to withhold federal matching funds from Sharpton's campaign until the allegations contained in the Complaint are investigated. The Barrett article details the dubious circumstances surrounding a campaign by consultant Roger Stone to round up donations in enough states to attempt to qualify Sharpton for matching funds.
The Barrett article alleges that Sharpton's nonprofit group, the National Action Network (NAN), may have underwritten this travel with funds received as large loans or gifts from Stone and/or other unnamed donors.
NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm said, "Al Sharpton is notorious for not paying his bills. The FEC must utilize all legal means at its disposal to recover this taxpayer money."
NLPC promotes ethics in public life, and sponsors the Government Integrity Project. NLPC has a long history of successful actions before the FEC.
On March 26, 2004, the FEC fined two leadership PACs associated with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a total of $21,000 in response to an NLPC Complaint. On Jan. 13, 2004, the FEC ruled in response to another NLPC Complaint that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) illegally failed to disclose large loans to her campaign just prior to her 2000 Senate election.
poor Al.. waaaaaaah
Can you say: "Snowball's chance in hell"?
There must be some mistake here. Al Sharpton is a man of the cloth.
Audit Je$$e!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.