Posted on 07/19/2011 11:26:33 AM PDT by jazusamo
A few months after Sen. Claire McCaskill was entwined in a scandal over the use of her personal plane for campaign travel, the Missouri Democrat has released amended campaign finance reports dating back to 2006. According to the new filings with the Federal Elections Commission, McCaskill’s campaign committee had failed to account for 143 contributions in the ‘06 cycle, totaling nearly $277,000. The committee also missed about $277,000 in disbursements. During that cycle, McCaskill raised $11.5 million. The discrepancies, her campaign said, could be attributed to the fact that donations were coming in at a furious clip at the end of the race, shortly after a plane crash killed McCaskill’s top campaign-finance aide and five other skydivers in July 2006. A campaign spokeswoman downplayed the amendments as nothing more than “routine housekeeping.” Apart from the unrecorded donations, McCaskill filed four amendments to account for instances where she personally paid for plane trips that included a political event for her 2012 campaign. FEC rules require self-funded political travel to be listed as an “in-kind contribution,” but McCaskill had not previously reported the trips. No tax dollars were used for any of these trips, a campaign spokeswoman said. The amendments accounted for a $1,395 roundtrip flight from St. Louis to Kansas City on Dec. 15, 2008; an $1,809 roundtrip flight from St. Louis to Chicago on Nov. 1, 2009; and $3,460 for a plane trip from St. Louis to Kansas City to Springfield, Mo., and back to St. Louis in April 2010. However, $912 of that third trip was for official Senate business. “These minor updates are simply a matter of tying up loose ends on the in-kind, political use of the plane,” said Missouri Democratic Party spokeswoman Caitlin Legacki, who is assisting the McCaskill campaign. “After Claire self-reported errors in March, she said she would thoroughly review the flights and these updates are a result of that review.” The St. Louis Beacon first reported the new amendments filed by McCaskill, a first-term senator and one of the GOP’s top targets in 2012. In March, McCaskill reimbursed the Treasury than $88,000 after POLITICO reported she had used taxpayer dollars from her Senate office account to pay for nearly 90 flights on her private plane, a single-engine turbo-prop Pilatus PC-12. That same week, POLITICO reported that at least one of the trips was political in nature, which prompted the Missouri Republican Party to file a Senate ethics complaint against McCaskill. Weeks later, McCaskill said that she and her husband, St. Louis businessman Joe Shepard, had failed to pay nearly $320,000 in state back taxes and penalties on the plane over a four-year period. She promptly vowed to “sell the damn plane,” though so far there have been no buyers. Republicans, who see McCaskill’s seat as a prime pick up opportunity in 2012, have had a field day with the senator’s accounting blunders. “For someone who prides herself on being an auditor, lawyer, and government watchdog, Claire McCaskill sure does seem to make a lot of accounting and tax errors,” said Lloyd Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party.
Say WHAT? 1800 bux for those flights?! Does anyone realize that KC is only 3.5 hours west of StL and Chicago is only about 4.5 to 5! $3,460 for a trip from StL to KC to Springfield and back?! WHAT THE HELL!! More shenanigans from Air Claire!
ALL democrats are TAX CHEATS!!
Hey, wasn’t there a politician a week or so a go asking fat cats with jet to pay more taxes? Oh, this was a Democrat so that does not count.
ALL democrats are TAX CHEATS!!
Very true statement, and yet not one single word from the lame stream media......
My thoughts also when reading those numbers, waaay out of line.
I liked this comment after the article. LOL!
“Sure, Clair. You forgot that you lived in MO, and that’s why you registered your plane in Delaware.
They do sound so much the same.....Missouri....Delaware.......anyone would make the same mistake.”
The first thing that I thought of when I saw those numbers is that Alec Baldwin commercial for whatever airline where he has ten ppl in his entourage including a makeup person and chef and a manicurist etc . . .I superimposed McCaskill’s face over Baldwin.
LOL! I have to remember that.
Oh, that wacky Air Claire. What are we going to do with her?
Weeks later, McCaskill said that she and her husband, St. Louis businessman Joe Shepard, had failed to pay nearly $320,000 in state back taxes and penalties on the plane over a four-year period. She promptly vowed to “sell the damn plane,” though so far there have been no buyers.
Republicans, who see McCaskill’s seat as a prime pick up opportunity in 2012, have had a field day with the senator’s accounting blunders.
“For someone who prides herself on being an auditor, lawyer, and government watchdog, Claire McCaskill sure does seem to make a lot of accounting and tax errors,” said Lloyd Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59369.html#ixzz1SaUn0NuO
First class all the way. Oh, and the helicopter flight from the airport to wherever she was going.
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