Posted on 02/18/2012 8:47:33 PM PST by Steelfish
Questions Surface On Gingrich Campaign Travel Payments By Luke Rosiak February 17, 2012
When Newt Gingrich’s campaign disclosed in October it planned to pay the candidate $70,000 for travel expenses in the third quarter, the transfer was an anomaly among presidential campaigns.
But weeks ago, the former House speaker revised his third-quarter bill: He actually expected to personally receive $115,000 of the funds donated to his campaign to reimburse himself for expenses during that period.
The campaign would not explain how the candidate forgot about $45,000 in receipts, what they were for or why the campaign wasn’t simply paying the invoices directly, as other campaigns do. Far beyond that payment, the uses of donations to Mr. Gingrich’s campaign are being obscured on a massive scale by the unprecedented use of a legally questionable tactic, The Washington Times found one that has accompanied the flow of the better part of a million dollars in unexplained cash to Mr. Gingrich, family members and top staffers.
The money reportedly was to reimburse employees for unspecified expenses in what amounted to petty cash exceeding their entire salaries, The Times’s analysis of federal records showed. The move would be permitted only if, election lawyers say, that money was spread across so many vendors that not a single company received more than $200 in total.
“That’s an enormous amount of money, and not $200 wound up in the same place? I find that extraordinarily hard to believe,” said Brett Kappel, an election-law lawyer for Arent Fox LLC, a law firm and lobbying group based in Washington, D.C. “I’ve never seen a major presidential campaign run this way but I’ve only been doing this for 21 years.
“If this recurs throughout the campaign, this is the kind of issue where you get audited,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Newt and his campaign has got some questions to answer... could he get some advise from Jimmy Bakker on what to do ?
Would be more of a body blow to someone like Santorum with his new foundation based on religious rhetoric....
Newt and his campaign has got some questions to answer... could he get some advise from Jimmy Bakker on what to do ?
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Nah, Jimmy Bakker went to jail over his mess and his finance issues weren’t political.
Being that Santorum is a lawyer and he seems to have experience with this sort of thing, perhaps Gingrich should consult Santorum?
And yet just yesterday you went into a Santorum thread to snipe at him about his DeWine endorsement.
Not that it matters. I try to stay out of all the Newt threads, either pro, or like this one, negative. Once in a while I go into one and try to discuss some policy point, but that rarely is welcome anyway around here.
And there are lots of anti-Santorum threads, and the Santorum people aren't posting them. And there are anti-Gingrich threads like this, and the Gingrich folks aren't posting them. There used to be anti-Romney threads, but not much anymore, people are too busy posting anti-Gingrich and anti_Santorum thread.
However, I will say there is a distinction to be made. This particular thread is anti-Gingrich, but it is a real article from a real newspaper, so it is "news", and it helps to discuss it (I'm not discussing it, I'm reading to see whether any pro-Newt folks have any actual responses to the article, unfortunately not, just complaints about the article, but I still hold out hope).
A lot of the negative articles, mostly Santorum but also some GIngrich, aren't current news items, they are dredged up old stuff being posted again and again. I'm not complaining about that either -- I'm ignoring them, and I imagine everybody is except a few who like to argue about things as if anybody cares.
I think it makes people feel good to post stuff, but it isn't changing anybody's minds. Which is good, because if anybody came here to FR to have their minds changed, we'd end up with Romney winning our nomination.
For example, last night we had an "anti-Santorum" thread posted and the pro-Newt folks where there, and it turned out the article was a pro-Romney article that bashed Gingrich as well.
For example, last night we had an "anti-Santorum" thread posted and the pro-Newt folks where there, and it turned out the article was a pro-Romney article that bashed Gingrich as well.
Nonetheless, pro-Newts likely got feed up with all the anti-Gingrich bashing going on. If I went to look at the FR history of this, the Santos were on an intense bash trip against Gingrich long before the anti-Santorum threads got their boots on.
We’re probably all getting tired of it, but we can’t stop it.
feed up = fed up
I am fascinated in the article by all the careful campaign accountancy rules we have.
Re Gingrich, he is a man who can aptly fight false allegations or innuendo. Let’s see how he does in the coming days. Either he’s being slammed here over nothing, or he’s been financially sloppy. And if the latter, was it because of disorganization or bad intent?
Giving him a pass here so far.
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