FEC Investigators Digging Into Obama's 2008 Campaign
Saturday, 16 Apr 2011 06:29 PM
Barack Obama raised a record-shattering $750 million on his way to winning the 2008 presidential election. But that stunning flood of cash has triggered an investigation by the Federal Election Commission, which is taking a detailed look at the campaign's records and transactions.
According to Roll Call, the audit of Obama's financial records began Barack Obama, Federal Election Commission, Investigation, 2008 Presidential Election two years ago. It was not required by law, since the Obama campaign did not accept federal matching funds and funded itself entirely with private donations. But allegations of improper contributions, coupled with the FEC's suspicions of certain transactions, led to the probe.
Obama recently officially launched his 2012 campaign effort, and a representative there admitted to Roll Call that a review was under way.
"The FEC is conducting a routine review — as is true with the McCain campaign, the Romney campaign and many others — to determine if they have any questions with the information reported," Katie Hogan, deputy press secretary for Obama's re-election campaign, told Roll Call. "Given that there was an historic number of contributors and contributions — nearly 4 million and over 9 million, respectively — this takes time."
In October 2008, Newsmax's Ken Timmerman reported that questions about the source of Obama's amazing fundraising were already swirling around. He reaped a stunning $150 million in campaign donations in September of that year, bringing his total at the time to more than $600 million.
As Timmerman reported:
By Obama’s own admission, more than half of his contributions have come from small donors giving $200 or less. But unlike John McCain’s campaign, Obama won’t release the names of these donors.
A Newsmax canvass of disclosed Obama campaign donors shows worrisome anomalies, including outright violations of federal election laws.
For example, Obama has numerous donors who have contributed well over the $4,600 federal election limit.
Many of these donors have never been contacted by the Obama campaign to refund the excess amounts to them.
And more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.
According to a Newsmax analysis of the Obama campaign data before the latest figures were released, potential foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million in all. With the addition of $150 million raised in September, this amount could be much more.
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FEC Investigators Digging Into Obama's 2008 Campaign
