FEC asks for an explanation of Bernie's mystery $10 million dollars

[BainsBane]

Nope, it's not an old story posted again. This is a new letter from the FEC dated March 30.

The FEC:

This notice requests information essential to full public disclosure of your
federal election campaign finances. Failure to adequately respond by the response
date noted above could result in an audit or enforcement action. (emphasis FEC's) Additional
information is needed for the following 1 item(s):

Line 17(a)(i) of the Detailed Summary Page of your report discloses a total of
$3,279,505.25 in contributions from individuals. The sum of the entries
itemized on Schedule A-P, however, indicates the total to be $13,745,417.64.
These amounts should be the same. Please amend your report to clarify the
discrepancy. (11 CFR § 104.3(a) and (b))

http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/542/201603300300040542/201603300300040542.pdf

Note this is the third violation in two months for the Sanders campaign. His authorized Pac had one earlier in 2015.

But keep complaining about Hillary's legal fundraisers, Bernie. It's not like your millions in excessive and illegal donations really matter.

Predictably, the press is nowhere on this. For all the whining by his campaign about unfair treatment, they are giving him a pass for repeated and ongoing violations of campaign finance law.

[DanTex]

1. What is going on over there at camp Bernie? Violating FEC regulations, can't find

his tax returns. This is a dude who wants to be the effing POTUS. It's just weird that he can't get his act together.

[BainsBane]

3. From what I can tell from the brief text above

It looks to be an accounting error, but it's a pretty huge one. What is the point of hiring accountants if they can't do addition? And what would this bode for his ability to run the federal government?

[ViseGrip]

12. Like when Hillary overspent 10 million in her 2008 campaign? She begged us for years to help her.

Obama, had to 'excuse' it/her.

Now....take this OP and shove it.

[angstlessk]

28. I bet if Bernies wife ran for president twice and this was his 2nd

bite at the apple, I betcha he would have those FEC regs memorized!

[libdem4life]

2. Bernie Who? (MSM) n/t

[The Old Lie]

4. Explanation given

Google it. It was an Actblue error.

[BainsBane]

20. No, there has been no explanation for this filing

As far as I know. If you have the link to the Sanders campaign response, by all means, provide the link.

I suspect you are thinking of a justification floating around for some of his previous violations. There have been two earlier letters from the FEC listing thousands of violations, which include single checks over the legal limit, hundreds of donations by foreign nationals, and single individuals making multiple donations that exceed legal limits.

Even if the money originated from Act Blue, which I have no doubt some of it did, the campaign is required by law to account for its donations and expenditures. The submissions flagged by the FEC were by the Sanders campaign itself. It is the legal responsibility of the campaign to verify the identity of all donors and legality of all contributions and report amounts (cumulative, not just single donations) over $200.

[think]

5. Over 7 million donations from over 2 million people. Hillary will never have that problem.

[BainsBane]

7. What she doesn't do is repeatedly violate campaign finance law

and she has had over a million donors. The campaign uses software to track limits so that donors don't exceed them. They also hire accountants who know how to add.

Hillary is competent. It is now impossible to make that claim about Bernie.

[ViseGrip]

9. He is tracking the most contributions ever given, so many last minute.

This is stupid, it's all part of the process and the FEC making money during the campaign season.

'Hillary is competent'. blah blah. Have you ever been a staffer on a campaign? I love the moles that give bad checks near the end, you spend it last minute, and then the check is bad, and you have to pay for it.....but it has to be donations....

[think]

15. If she's so competent maybe she could pay her campaign bills on time

Iowa police department wants Clinton campaign to pay up

DES MOINES (KWWL) -
Des Moines Police say the Clinton campaign has not reimbursed them for their work during a Katy Perry concert last year.

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had to get street use permits for their respective campaign events, because they requested closing streets to host their events, and they used police services for their events as well. Those rallies were held on Saturday, October 24th, 2015, before the Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

"Typically the money that is reimbursed by the campaign, so we bill the campaign for those city services when they have to have a street closure and that's just part of city ordinance and that's the way it is," said Sergeant Paul Parizek of Des Moines Police. "What hurts us is when those campaigns don't reimburse us for the police services."

Officials say Sanders is paid off in full, and the Clinton campaign is not. The invoice is nearly $1,800.

In a statement, the Clinton Campaign says:

"We have been in constant communication with the Des Moines Police Department, as recently as this month, to get an invoice and as soon as we receive it we will pay the bill immediately. We appreciate the work they do, including keeping Iowans safe at this event."

http://www.kwwl.com/story/31433952/2016/03/10/clinton-campaign-responds-for-not-reimbursing-iowa-police

[beam me up scottie]

6. CALL CONGRESS RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!

[BainsBane]

10. In other words

You don't care at all about campaign finance or the fact that Bernie is running on a platform to reform a campaign finance system he repeatedly violates.

Hardly a shock. No issue is too insignificant to toss aside. He's only running for president of the United States. Except some of us care about more than empty speeches. Some of us expect candidates to show as least a functional level of competence. Bernie has shown time and time again that he cannot meet that standard.

[beam me up scottie]

13. In other words your latest poutrage attempt is still a big fat fail.

But keep trying to paint Bernie as someone who can't be trusted with money, hey everyone needs a hobby, amirite?

[BainsBane]

17. Campaign finance law is central to his campaign

and what the campaign has done is in fact illegal. That you consider it "poutrage" only shows how little issues matter to you. I don't know what it is you actually care about, other than descending on anyone who dares to question Bernie or disagree with you in anyway. What you never do is actually discuss issues. I can't do anything about the fact you care about nothing. I will still post because issues matter and campaign finance matters, no matter how dedicated you are to hiding the truth from the public.

[beam me up scottie]

19. This from the person who said Bernie took 23 million in illegal campaign contributions?

After it was proven to be a lie weeks ago?

No, Social Media Warriors. Bernie Sanders Did Not Get $23M In 'Illegal Contributions'

For weeks now, I've seen social media warriors put out the claim that Bernie Sanders has received $23 million in "illegal campaign contributions" from donors. Another common allegation concerns one contribution from a corporation that the FEC questioned.

These allegations stem from an FEC inquiry into the Sanders campaign's December, 2015 campaign finance report of small donations. In a 43-page letter, the FEC questioned contributions in excess of the legal limits, one contribution from a LLC, and the total contributions shown for individual small donors.

I reviewed the whole report -- all 99,000 pages -- when I first saw the rumors swirling. After looking at it, it seemed to me that there were some fairly egregious errors in the report, but nothing nefarious. At best, it was incompetence and little more than that.

The allegation that he received $23 million in "illegal contributions." He did not. Here's what actually happened. ActBlue transmitted their collections on his behalf to the campaign, along with a report on who made the donations. When the Sanders campaign transferred those ActBlue donations to their report, they reported the entire amount transmitted by ActBlue as the aggregate contribution per donor, instead of each small donor's total contribution to the campaign.

So, if John Q Public made three $25 contributions via ActBlue to the campaign, his report entry showed the $25 contribution with an aggregate for the cycle of $23 million, instead of the correct amount of $75. The same is true for Jane Q Public's $25 contribution, and so on. There wasn't anything illegal about John and Jane Q Public's contributions at all, but it triggered a query because the aggregate contributions for them was over the aggregate limit of $2,700 for the primaries or $5,400 for the primary and the general.

Again. Not illegal, and not dishonest. Just a really bad error that will surely be corrected.

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/03/no-social-media-warriors-bernie-sanders

You must be joking, why would anyone pay attention to your "issues"?

[Juicy_Bellows]

23. Bravo!

[Habibi]

16. Do you not care that this was an ActBlue error

as explained in #4?

[BainsBane]

18. How would you know that?

The Sanders campaign hasn't yet responded to this letter. You may be thinking of some of the thousands of prior violations. And no, I don't find it particularly significant. Candidates are expected to obey campaign finance law, even if their supporters insist their favored members of the political elite are above the law.

[ViseGrip]

8. Every campaign I've worked on, when it's last minute, well, some have to be returned.

It's the way it is.....millions of contributions coming in...you try and get everything in order for last minute filing. We always have fines, and they change rules every election too, as the fines all over the campaign across the country, make them money on all the 250.00 violations.

We have always had a few....even on small mayoral races.

[BainsBane]

14. Do you know of other violations from this presidential contest?

from major candidates of either party?

Do you seriously think this level of violation is common? We are up to some $33 million dollars now and thousands of violations.
It looks like the one above may be simply an inability to add.

[mcar]

11. K&R

[passiveporcupine]

21. Hell, the February report had so many issues

it looked like a mine field, and the July report has one issue...I think that's a pretty good improvement. BTW, last time they had a $10 million dollar question, it turned out to be one fo the bundles of donations grouped into $10 million on the report, and it was a non-issue, as this will probably turn out to be. They just need to link it to the smaller donations not itemized on the report, like last time. At least that's my recollection of what happened last time.

And I've got a question...everyone in Hill camp is so excited about the mistakes on Bernie's report that solicit these letters from the FEC, but no one ever follows up to say they turned out to be illegal and he was penalized...I wonder why? How come Bernie isn't in jail by now, because you always seem to make a point of the "threat" this letter imposes and how evil or corrupt he is with his illegal campaign finance shenanigans. Could it be that this is normal errors and once corrected the slate is wiped clean? At least in the eyes of the FEC...never in the eyes of Hill camp.

Oh this is fun...I wonder how many new threads will be started about this error?

[riderinthestorm]

22. Please provide the source materials for this discrepancy.

Until we can see if this is an accounting error or not (which the tone of the letter indicates), there's no way to adequately evaluate this properly without the original documents.

My fairly high income business has been audited three times and they aren't nice about it like this letter. You're given a time, date, and place to appear (with representation) and instructed on relevant documents to bring. There's nothing in this letter that's remotely threatening.

Furthermore I pay taxes quarterly. The only time I had a discrepancy in my paperwork I received a letter very similar to the one in your OP requesting amended forms to be re-filed.

The press isn't covering this because its not a story. Its a request for an amended form not a smoking gun.

[nc4bo]

24. Clinton Foundation failed to disclose 1100 FOREIGN donations! 1100!!!!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511615050

[NurseJackie]

25. Uh-oh! ...

Not good. This will DESTROY his chances of winning any other states. Even the friendly ones.

Say goodnight, Bernie.

[The Old Lie]

27. *looks around*

"nope"

[RAFisher]

26. How does OP know something illegal is going on? The letter just asks for clarification by 5/1/2016

It's not May yet.

[NurseJackie]

29. I think it shows incompetence, or being ...

... unprepared and then not being able to make the necessary and timely corrections to comply with the law.

[840high]

30. A Hillary supporter worried

about complying with the law. What a sense of humor you seem to have.