Palin's PAC forced to correct FEC filing
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/18/art.palin0818.gi.jpg caption=" Palin's PAC is correcting a number of FEC errors."]WASHINGTON (CNN) - Sarah Palin's political action committee violated federal election laws with two donations earlier this year and filed a mid-year report with a number of errors in it, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In a five-page letter to SarahPAC treasurer Tim Crawford, the FEC highlights a number of issues with the filed report, including donating more than is allowed to the reelection campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Lisa Murkowski, as well as not providing proper descriptions on how some of the PAC's money was spent.
Contacted by CNN, Crawford said the committee was currently revising the report to fix the errors and said these types of mistakes are not uncommon with FEC filings.
"A million of these [correction letters] go out every month," Crawford said. "They send out a lot of them.
A spokesman for the FEC said its standard practice for all reports to be reviewed, but would not estimate how many PAC's usually have to file corrections.
Specifically, the FEC notes SarahPAC gave $5,000 to McCain and Murkowski's primary campaigns - $2,600 more than is allowed for a PAC of SarahPAC's designation to give to a primary effort. SarahPAC also designated the donation for the senators' 2009 primary when in fact the primaries are in 2010.
To fix the error, Crawford said the PAC will allocate $2,400 to the senators' primary campaigns and $2,400 to the general election effort as is allowed under election laws. The PAC has also obtained a $200 refund from both campaigns to make up the difference.
"We essentially gave $200 too much," Crawford said. "We have since redesignated with both committees."
Crawford attributed some of the mistakes to being a new PAC and also noted FEC software that was supposed to flag mistakes when reports are initially submitted showed no errors with their filing.
"We filed what we thought was perfectly right," Crawford said. "If there is a violation, the FEC won't accept the report, but ours was accepted with no warnings or violations."
SarahPAC has until September 24 to file an amended report.
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Hey CNN and liberals, how about a story about how Charlie Rangel (who is writing a bill to raise our taxes to pay for health care) forgot to tell the IRS of about a half million dollars he had laying around. Don't know how you do this unless you are a liberal congressman, and it wasn't Nancy Pelosi who found it during her still uncompleted 10 month investigation. Liberal hypocrites. And CNN, still no story, state run media.
We will be lucky when Palin is sworn in as POTUS in January 2013. Gone will be the racist/Marxist Obama and the violent thugs that support him.
it's comical that people are making a big deal about this. the fec admits that this happens alot. i'm sure that there are democrats that have done this... but, since the left and the media that panders to it find that since palin did this.. it needs to be put on the front page.
when is cnn going to report a democrat pac making the same mistake? my guess is never.
What do you expect from an idiot.... LOL
Let's critically examine the credibility of Tim Crawford- a million letters a month go out about campaign finance violations? Where can he point us that proves that point? Or, is he merely blowing a bunch a unverifiable blather around.... like who we might know?
Anyone who's surprised please raise your hand.
Sounds like anything that Palin is associated with results in more ambition than competence. Can't blame them when Palin herself is incompetent and uneducated.
Rangel will probably go to jail and nothing, nada, from CNN.
All hail the Obama !!!!!!!!!
Please stop keeping her in the "news". She's now like Paris Hilton: famous for just being famous.
There is an unhealthy fascination the left has with Sarah Palin. Liberals call her stupid rather than intelligently challenging her positions. Palin's energy policy included exploiting our natural resources lessening foreign dependence. Obama's energy policy is to maintain tire pressure on your car. He actually said proper tire inflation would lessen our dependence on foreign sources. This is the bimbo you elected President.
amazing how many of you crybaby republicons come out to vehemently defend Palin whenever she's found to be workin the edges of ethics by attacking Dems.
Such transparent attempts at redirection are laughable.
This gal can't follow laws. She certainly can't write them or administer them. What a lot of us do is check with a lawyer from time to time. She should consider it. There are a bunch of them in the Yellow Pages.
What exactly is she good for? What exactly is she good at?
How about a story on Charlie Rangel's "amended" filings. Seems, he just found $250-500K in a checking account he didn't know he had – along with stock in Yum and PepsiCo and some vacant properties (2 of which it is reported he "forgot" to pay his property taxes on).
This is the guy who has the lead in writing our tax laws. Guess the reposnsibility is too great to even be able to keep track of his own personal finances.
Sarah makes the three stooges seem like rocket scientists.Rush heads for vacation next week and the poor dittoheads will be jonesing.hahaha
Not sure why CNN is reporting this when they did nothing about the $400,000 Charlie Rangel mess. I'm not a Palin fan, but the bias is obvious just by reading the headlines on this site.
I love how the story begins like this is something horrible that Sarah Palin was doing that was outside the law. The last sentence is totally at odds with the headline and body of the story...these mistakes are common and millions of these letters get sent out all the time. CNN, time to boot the bias and actually report the news without it being twisted out of shape. You lose credibility when you do this. I realize you won't publish this comment, but i had my say.
Check your facts, Liberals. Obama's PAC groups failed dozens of minor, meaningless checks along the way as well, you just can't read about it here.
Why isn'y CNN reporting on the statistic that proves that a human stands a better chance of being bitten by a shark on dry land than Palin has of ever being elected?
I see Ugly Sarah Palin the grifter is at it again. Nice Try Piglin. I'm glad the FEC won't allow her to get away with this.
Can't leave her alone can you. How many violations did the Obama election committe have?
Waaah!! Stop picking on Palin! Waaah!!
So amazing how Palin makes CNN news almost on a daily basis. It can be about something small or something big, yet not only does CNN publish the story, it's always on the ticker. Than we see it hit 300 comments with mostly Palin-bashing. I am sure Sarah really didn't have any direct involvement of the errors made with SarahPAC, yet everyone is so quick to blame her for the faults. Yesterday we were making fun of her for not being able to hold a schedule.. Yet her campaign was not aware of the event at all.. Seems CNN likes to try to stir the pot since we always see 300 comments on her stories. I think she gets more press coverage than Obama.. That's Crazy!
Go away Sarah! Go far away!!
Have you nothing better to do?
Why does this Palin women get so much attention? She has no talent and is little more than a crude "Jerry Springer" type.