Today,
Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center called on the Federal
Election Commission and the Justice Department to investigate whether a
$1 million contribution made by Spann LLC to Restore Our Future, a
Super PAC, violated the campaign finance laws.
The groups filed a complaint
at the FEC and wrote to the Justice Department requesting
an investigation.
Restore
Our Future was formed by supporters of presidential candidate Mitt
Romney and is expected to make “independent expenditures” to support
Romney’s presidential campaign. Spann LLC is a mysterious corporation
formed in March 2011 and dissolved in July 2011 after making a $1
million contribution to the pro-Romney Super PAC.
The
individuals or groups behind the creation of the corporation and the
source of the $1 million contribution it made are unknown.
“This
case involves a stark example of the secret money we can expect to see
poured into the 2012 presidential and congressional races in the wake
of the Citizens United decision” said Democracy 21 President
Fred Wertheimer. “In this case, it appears that someone has gone
to
great lengths to evade the campaign finance disclosure laws in order to
hide what they are doing from the American people. This is unacceptable
and potentially illegal conduct and we are calling for an investigation
of possible campaign finance violations by the Federal Election
Commission and Justice Department,” Wertheimer said.
"It is very
important to get to the bottom of what is going on here,” Wertheimer
stated. “History tells us that secret money in American politics is a
formula for scandal and corruption,” Wertheimer said. "It is also very
important to send a signal to the American people and to the regulated
community that evasions and violations of the campaign finance laws
will not be tolerated in our elections,” Wertheimer continued.
“If the three Republican Commissioners on the six-member FEC, however, continue to keep blocking enforcement of the campaign finance laws, as they have consistently done, the American people face widespread blatant evasion and violation of the campaign finance laws in the 2012 elections,” Wertheimer said.
“This case deserves a good hard look from the agencies charged with enforcing our nation’s election laws and if violations are found they must be prosecuted vigorously to deter such violations in the future – otherwise ‘straw companies’ will make a mockery of campaign finance disclosure and the specter of foreign campaign contributions will hang over the process,” said Paul S. Ryan, FEC Program Director at the Campaign Legal Center, which took the lead in drafting the FEC complaint and letter to the Justice Department. “The case should serve as yet another wake up call for Congress to shore up our woefully inadequate disclosure laws in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision before still more scandals emerge, further undermining the country’s faith in representative democracy.”
“If
the FEC remains unwilling to enforce the nation’s election laws, we
hope the Department of Justice will take up the slack as it did with
Pierce O’Donnell, a case resolved yesterday when O’Donnell agreed to
serve six months in jail for making ‘straw donor’ contributions to the
presidential campaign of John Edwards,” said Ryan. The Campaign
Legal
Center and Democracy 21 participated as “friends of the court” in the
O’Donnell lawsuit urging prosecution.
According to the complaint
filed with the FEC and the letter sent to the Justice Department, with
a copy of the complaint, by Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center,
there is reason to believe, based on published
reports,
that W Spann LLC and any person(s) who created, operated and made
contributions in the name of W Spann LLC may have violated 2 U.S.C.
§
441f by making a contribution(s) to the political committee Restore Our
Future in the name of another person, namely W Spann LLC.
The
complaint and letter also state that W Spann LLC may have violated 2
U.S.C. § 441f by knowingly permitting its name to be used for the
making of such contribution(s).
The complaint and letter
further state that, based on published reports, W Spann LLC and the
person(s) who created and operated W Spann LLC may have violated 2
U.S.C. §§ 432, 433 and 434 by failing to organize a political
committee, register the political committee and file disclosure reports
as a political committee, as defined at 2 U.S.C. § 431(4).
According to the FEC complaint:
On August 4, 2011, NBC News reported: “A mystery company that pumped $1 million into a political committee backing Mitt Romney has been dissolved just months after it was formed, leaving few clues as to who was behind one of the biggest contributions yet of the 2012 presidential campaign.”
The political committee named in the article is Restore Our Future, FEC committee identification number C00490045, which reported receiving a $1 million contribution from W Spann LLC on its mid-year report filed with the Commission on July 31, 2011.
According to the NBC News article, W Spann LLC’s “corporate records provide no information about the owner of the firm, its address or its type of business.” The address included on Restore Our Future’s mid-year report for W Spann LLC is “a midtown Manhattan office building that has no record of such a tenant.” “A top executive of Minskoff Equities, the firm that manages the building, told NBC News that he had ‘never heard of’ W Spann and that his management firm has no record of any such tenant.”
The NBC News article explains that W Spann LLC was created March 15, 2011, when a “certificate of formation” was filed with the Delaware Secretary of State’s Office.
W Spann LLC made a $1 million contribution to Restore Our Future on April 28, 2011. W Spann LLC then “filed a ‘certificate of cancellation’ on July 11, effectively dissolving as a corporate entity, the records show.”