Hawaii? It's a long, long way from Maine. But that's not keeping a mysterious company calling itself the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers LLC from taking a six-figure interest in the re-election of Maine U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the Daily Beast reports. The information was contained in a complaint filed Monday by the Campaign Legal Center with the Federal Election Commission.
The group has no website, no social media presence, and only lists one officer—one Jennifer Lam, who is likewise a mystery—in its FEC filing as a political donor. It uses a P.O. box for its address, and internet searches turn up no information on the company. But it had $150,000 to contribute to the 1820 PAC. We've met that PAC before, after it formed last year with a bang to support Collins, reporting huge amounts of contributions from a tiny number of donors: Just seven people pumped in more than $775,000. Now it has had another infusion from this Hawaiian company that appears not to exist.
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"The available facts do not suggest that SYWSE conducted any business or had sufficient income from assets, investment earnings, business revenues, or bona fide capital investments to cover the $150,000 contribution to 1820 PAC at the time the contribution was made, without an infusion of funds provided to them for that purpose," the CLC wrote in its filing.
This is all very interesting, given Collins' handwringing and fretting over the grassroots fundraising campaign launched against her following her Brett Kavanaugh performance—a campaign launched in part by Mainers who have their names attached to every single donation. If, as she says, all these small donors are trying to "bribe" her, what does that say about the people anonymously and illegally coughing up hundreds of thousands specifically for her?