Michael Isikoff of MSNBC is reporting that 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 existence of the million-dollar donation — as gleaned from campaign and corporate records obtained by NBC News — provides a vivid example of how secret campaign cash is being funneled in ever more circuitous ways into the political system.
The company, W Spann LLC, was formed in March by a Boston lawyer who specializes in estate tax planning for "high-net-worth individuals," according to corporate records and the lawyer's bio on her firm's website.
The corporate records provide no information about the owner of the firm, its address or its type of business.
Six weeks later, W Spann LLC made its million-dollar donation to Restore Our Future — a new so-called super PAC started by a group of former Romney political aides to boost the former Massachusetts governor's presidential bid. It listed its address as a midtown Manhattan office building that has no record of such a tenant.
The Boston lawyer, Cameron Casey, dissolved the company on July 12 — two weeks before Restore Our Future made its first campaign filing of the year reporting the donation from the now nonexistent company, the corporate records show.
"I don't see how you can do this," said Lawrence Noble, the former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, when asked about the contribution from the now defunct company.
Can you say "shady," followed closely by "brazen"? A mystery company makes a $1 million donation and disappears? The sad part about it is that they actually thought that no one would notice, which probably means that it has been done before and no one has noticed, which is even sadder.
Campaign-finance reform is a real concern for those on both sides of the political aisle. However, there is a process in place that should be followed. Secret transactions of campaign cash by mysterious companies is not a part of it.
Read more at MSNBC.
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