Free Republic

Nearly two months after dropping his bid for the GOP nomination, Herman Cain’s presidential campaign paid about $19,000 to a pair of nonprofit groups that are reportedly under federal investigation for boosting his White House bid. The Wisconsin-based groups, Prosperity USA and Wisconsin Prosperity Network, were run by Cain’s top aides and footed the bill for about $40,000 of goods and services — including iPads and chartered flights — that helped Cain’s campaign get going early last year, according to documents obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Wisconsin-based groups, Prosperity USA and Wisconsin Prosperity Network, were run by Cain’s...

Liberal attack-dog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission Friday over allegations that Prosperity USA, a nonprofit advocacy corporation run by Herman Cain campaign manager Mark Block, paid for iPads and travel related to Cain’s presidential campaign. If true, says CREW, the Cain campaign — and Block personally — would be guilty of violating at least two federal election laws. The allegations were first reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on October 30, based on internal financial records the newspaper said it obtained. The Journal Sentinel reported the following day that...

Cain campaign launches internal investigation Daniel Bice November 1, 2011 For GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, the questions far outnumber the answers.Mark Block, chief of staff for the Cain campaign, announced the campaign was hiring an investigator to check out claims that a private Wisconsin-based firm owned and run by Block and his No. 2 picked up the tab for as much as $40,000 in campaign expenses for the Cain campaign earlier this year."We've retained independent counsel to look at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story and report back to us," Block said Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., media event.A reporter...

Early in his candidacy, Herman Cain may have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in goods and services for his campaign from a tax-exempt organization founded by his top aide, documents from the organization show, raising the prospect of serious violations of tax and election law by both Mr. Cain’s campaign and the organization.The documents suggest that the nonprofit organization, Prosperity USA, effectively subsidized some early costs of his presidential bid, paying for computer equipment, charter planes and air travel for Mr. Cain or the aide, Mark Block, who is his chief of staff.Such expenditures would violate federal election and...