Greg Sargent is still trying to get an answer out of the Chamber of Commerce about whether they have a firewall preventing the mixing of foreign funds in the general fund out of which they pay for political ads.
Jake Tapper got a bit closer to unraveling this mystery yesterday. He quoted a Chamber spokesperson telling him that money raised abroad from foreign corporations and dues paid by "AmChams" (chambers in other countries) does in fact go into a general fund, but is then diverted to the "international division."
But here the plot thickens again. Chamber spokesperson Tita Freeman tells me that this isn't true. She says it's "inaccurate" to claim that there is a "general fund" to begin with. Yet she stressed the Chamber sees no need to share any additional detail about its inner workings.
I then got into an email exchange with Ms. Freeman that illustrates the hall-of-mirrors quality this story is taking on. With her permission, I'm reprinting it:
ME: My premise is that you guys think you are under no obligation to address the central allegation Think Progress is making about the general fund. Fair?
Ms. FREEMAN: Think Progress' allegation is that we're using foreign funds in our political activities. That is entirely inaccurate. We comply with all applicable laws.
ME: The allegation is that foreign money goes into the same fund that funds your political ads.
Ms. FREEMAN: Again, that is wrong. The deminimus amount of foreign funds that come in from the AmChams and business councils is spent on international programs.
ME: This seems pretty straightforward to me. Does the foreign money go into the same fund that funds the ads?
Ms. FREEMAN: The foreign money goes to funding our international programs. We are not obligated to discuss our internal accounting procedures, as we are in compliance with all applicable laws.
"In compliance with all applicable laws," and yet refusing to demonstrate how. The Chamber feels like it is above the law, and they've got the money and the clout that would lead to that conclusion. Clout that leads them to actually broadcast the home phone number of a Dem candidate against whom they are running ads.
The Chamber is acting as though they are untouchable, spending pheonomenally obscene amounts of money and refusing to account for it.