[American in Israel]

The Democratic National Committee has agreed to pay civil fines and turn over to the Treasury a total of $243,000 to settle accusations that it took more than $1 million in illegal foreign contributions in 1995 and 1996, according to Federal Election Commission records released today.

No hard time, and they get to keep 75cents on the dollar. Yeah that will teach them...

[Greeklawyer]

All this does is establish that the Democrats know how to organize shell corporations. It is now clear that if you set up a sophisticated model on no asset corporations, place strawman officers from offshore (or better make them non-existent aliases to better ensure impossibility of service), and provide for not direct papertrail to the candidates; there is no real penalty. IF you are caught there is no danger of your candidates suffering and no danger of any criminal prosecution. This was a real good lesson. (where is O'Reilly's moral outrage when it would be usefull?)

The only message this "fine" sends is how to perfect illegal contributions.