Posted on 06/20/2011 10:58:33 PM PDT by jennychase
On Nov. 5, 2009, at the behest of Rep. Michele Bachmann, thousands of tea party activists descended on the Capitol to vent their rage over the health care overhaul bill pending before Congress. The assembled activists chanted, "Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" and waved signs opposing a government takeover of health care — but they may not have known that the same government was paying for the event. According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total of $13,630, to a sound and stage company called National Events, apparently for the sound system used at the rally. The money came from the Members' taxpayer-funded office accounts, despite House rules prohibiting the use of these funds for political activities. Bachmann's office insists the expense was a proper use of official funds. Bachmann billed the event as a "press conference," which can be funded from official accounts. But no questions were taken from the press and, unlike most press conferences, it opened with a prayer, the national anthem and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. .............
Bachmann gave her own response, calling it the tea party response, making many of the same points as Ryan. The speech was streamed online by the Tea Party Express. The following day, Bachmann's campaign paid Oval Office Writers — an Arlington, Va., firm — a $5,000 fee for "speechwriting." Bachmann has occasionally spent money out of her office account for things closely tied to her political activities. But as with the rally, it is not clear whether she has violated any rules. For instance, in June 2010, Bachmann added to her Congressional payroll a "senior advisor" named Guy Short, whose last Congressional job had been chief of staff to ex-Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), who lost her re-election bid in 2008. According to Congressional pay records, Bachmann paid Short $5,000 for the month. On June 3, 2010, Short established C&M Strategies in Colorado. Records on file with the Colorado secretary of state list Short as the "registered agent" of the firm; the incorporator was Colorado certified public accountant Barry Arrington. In July, Short dropped off Bachmann's payroll, but Bachmann's campaign began paying C&M Strategies for fundraising consulting services. That month, Arrington filed papers with the Federal Election Commission creating Bachmann's leadership PAC, called Many Individual Conservatives Helping Elect Leaders Everywhere, which by September was also paying C&M Strategies for fundraising consulting services. Since then, MICHELEPAC and the campaign committee have paid C&M Strategies about $150,000 for fundraising consulting, and Short has never again appeared on Bachmann's Congressional payroll. Asked about Short's duties in the Congressional office, Bachmann spokesman Doug Sachtleben said in an email, "With six years of hill experience as a Chief of Staff, Guy Short worked with every member of the Congresswoman's staff to ensure that they worked as effectively as possible to serve the constituents of Minnesota's sixth district." Several other Bachmann staffers, including Communications Director David Dziok, former Chief of Staff Ron Carey, former "constituent service officer" Jack Tomczak and former Chief of Staff Andy Parrish all received regular checks from her campaign while serving on her Congressional payroll as well — which is permissible as long as the employees make a clear separation between the time they spend working on the campaign and the hours they are working for the Congressional office. Bachmann also appears to have used her Congressional office account to cover travel costs for television appearances — again, an unusual expense but not one barred by House rules.
Two words on this campaign: Ed Rollins.
Read full article, she is misusing funds.
Wow.
The left wing media never cared about this when it was Obama doing it.
He actually funded Acorn with millions of taxpayer dollars.
Got Michelle an overpaid no-show job with taxpayer funds in Chicago.
Nobody even writes about it.
Very much possible her campaign will collapse. Her vetting process just started. People don’t like, when Politicians do hanky panky with funds.
No she and two other congressmen rented sound systems to address the crowd! This would be similar usage of congressional money for a town hall event! Same thing!
No it will not collapse congress does this all the time. The take money out of their congressional office money to do this kind of stuff like Town Hall meetings same thing! Not a big deal!
What misuse of funds? This Commie Pinko writer goes down a laundry list of silly events and personnel hires trying to show some sort of criminality, and then ends the sentences saying it is legal what she is doing. At no point in this piece does he say that anything is illegal, misused or otherwise. Do you think the press would give her a pass if there were any real discrepancies?
This is just the typical hit piece on a right winger. Through 50 lbs bag of sh!t in the fan and hope it makes a mess.
I was there in that crowd! Hell ya!
This is pretty minor league compared to what the Dems do. If she is to be investigated for this then lets check every Rep., Sen., and the WH for the same thing. People have wised up to the exposé of certain Pols while letting others slide with much dirtier hands.
Compared to who, exactly?
It is the job of a politician to do politics.
Jenny, you seem to be one of those women who can not stand smart, strong, good looking women.
That is my take on you so far.
I read everything you posted.
I don’t think this Member of Congress did ANYTHING wrong.
I have a question and it really doesn’t ave anything to do with this, but I just looked up MICHELEPAC and where donations were given.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00486738&cycle=2010
There is one I don’t quite get so I am throwing it out there. None of the PAC’s donations to any Republican exceeded $2400, most were $1000. But in Virginia, her PAC contributed $6000 to a democrat who was challenging a Conservative Republican incumbent, Frank Wolf, whose rankings include 100% from National Right to Life, 0% from the Human Rights Coalition, 17% from the National Educational Association, 5% from the League of Conservation Voters, 92% from the United States Border Control.
Is there something about Wolf that isn’t right? What am I missing?
Don’t think for a second that the liberals aren’t all over this, either.
I saw this on Facebook not once but twice in the last hour.
Grrrrrrrr.
So far all I can find out about it is that the donation was a $1000 dollars. It was the only Rat donated to from the PAC and I can’t find a thing on who the hell Dennis Findley is.
Findley, Dennis (D-VA) $6,000
Flores, William (R-TX) $2,000
Gomez, John (R-NY) $1,000
Gowdy, Trey (R-SC) $1,000
Grimm, Michael (R-NY) $1,000
Guinta, Frank (R-NH) $1,000
Harmer, David Jeffrey (R-CA) $1,000
Harris, Andy (R-MD) $1,000
Hartzler, Vicky (R-MO) $1,000
Findley is disabled architect whose wife recently passed away. He withdrew fom the race. But this says SIX thousand. I am baffled.
Toast.
Toast!
I need some toast!
ELLEN MILLER (SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION) is an American political activist with extensive work in the fields of politics and money.[1] As an advocate for OPEN Government, Miller promotes the use of technology to increase transparency in government, and co-founded both the SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION (a 501(c)3 non-profit) as well as its sister organization, SUNLIGHT NETWORK (a 501(c)4 non-profit) with Michael Klein in 2006 to foster these goals. contin...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_S._Miller
ELLEN MILLER (SUNLIGHT) Board of Director at
THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS...maintain opensecrets.org
Funding...MAJOR DONORS -> SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION, the PEW Charitable Trusts, the CARNEGIE Corporation of New York, OPEN SOCIETY Institute, the JOYCE Foundation, and the FORD Foundation. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses, trade associations or labor unions...(heh)
Check out the MSM staff -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Responsive_Politics
opensecrets isn’t too trustworthy.
She is in bed with the establishment Republicans. If they wanted a crowd at a rally, they couldn’t get 100 people. So call Michele and she’ll get the TEA Party people. That’s why she leads the TEA Party caucus, so the Republican Party can use her to get the TEA Party to be their popular support. Why else did all the RINOs speak at that event? Why did House money pay for it?
She probably asserted herself into TEA Party events at their direction which means she’s been a phoney all along. Now she wants to split the conservative vote and let Romney take the nomination. Had me fooled for a while but no longer.
Every single source I can find says it was $1000 dollar donation, which makes sense since $6K is illegal. I would like to know why this guy got cash over the GOP candidate? There is more to this than meets the eye. All of the other people were Tea Party types. Maybe Findley was a TP challenger to this entrenched 18 term guy.
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.