Throughout this election season, one of the most confounding hurdles for John McCain has been, well, John McCain - as in McCain/Feingold campaign finance laws. Today, Jennifer Skalka of Hotline On Call reports on two possible FEC violations by the McCain presidential campaign. Also, not surprisingly, these violations tie into another McCain albatross: lobbyists with serious conflicts of interest.
The details of these developments are a bit complex for public consumption, but they do reinforce a growing meme of the general election. John McCain is neck deep in shady lobbyists and questionable campaign financing.
The Public Campaign Action Fund leads the way, today filing an offical FEC complaint request
that the Federal Election Commission conduct an investigation into two important possible violations of federal election law with regard to Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid and the John McCain 2008 Inc. committee.
I'll start with the second (simpler) complaint:
Item #2: The McCain Campaign May Have Received an Illegal $107,475 Corporate Contribution From 3eDC, a Company Partly Owned by Rick Davis, the Campaign Manager
Rick Davis took on his senior role with the McCain campaign in the summer of 2007. Within months $107k of debt owed to Mr. Davis' private web company was erased from the books (confirmed by McCain FEC filings). The McCain camp insists that this reduction of debt was simply a correction of billing errors, though they offer no proof of such a claim. But, if the "renegotiated" invoices were not justified under specific campaign finance law guidelines, it would be considered a corporate contribution in violation of the law. Considering Mr. Davis' dual roles, there is a high suspicion of actual FEC violations here.
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Item #1: The Loeffler Group LLP, a Lobbying Firm, May Have Subsidized a McCain Campaign Staffer’s Salary
Susan Nelson has been the full-time finance director of the McCain campaign since July of 2007. Susan Nelson was also a lobbyist for The Loeffler Group. And for a period of time, Ms. Nelson worked for both McCain and the lobbying firm. (note: Tom Loeffler is the former National Co-Chair who resigned after his $15 million gig with the Saudi government sparked controversy.)
Last month, Newsweek quoted an anonymous source who revealed that Ms. Nelson received $15,000 monthly from the Loeffler Group while she was the McCain finance director even though she had been dropped from lobbying disclosure filings after June of 2007.
Basically, if the source is accurate, and Ms. Nelson was being paid by the Loeffler Group without actually, you know, doing work for the Loeffler group, then its a clear violation of campaign finance laws. Campaign employees cannot have their salaries subsidized by outside sources.
Perhaps Ms. Nelson was actually working for both the McCain campaign and the Loeffler group, fairly earning her $18k+ a month combined salaries (when did she find time to sleep with 2 full time jobs?). What might she have been lobbying for?
Officially up until June of 2007, Ms. Nelson lobbied for EADS, the parent company of Airbus. Well, Airbus recently won a controversial Air Force contract for $40-$100 billion dollars, beating out the favored, United States based, Boeing Co. Oh, did I mention that John McCain was instrumental in directing the contract to Airbus?
Now, its debatable whether Airbus or Boeing was more deserving of the contract. However, Susan Nelson's relationships with and compensation from both Airbus and McCain creates quite a conflict of interest and doesn't portray a very attractive narrative to American industrial workers.
John McCain: A leader you can believe is heavily influenced by lobbyists. A leader who doesn't feel like he needs to follow the law (that he wrote).