NBC News
updated 8/4/2011 6:01:38 AM ET 2011-08-04T10:01:38
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.
Can't you just see it? Our hero doggedly filing FOI requests, or peeking into filing cabinets in the dead of the night, or getting behind locked doors to see what nefarious things lurk beyond... or even, and this would have been the most difficult thing of all, reading last Sunday's Washington Times: Romney campaign raises $12 million from just 90 donors
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney raised more than $12 million from just 90 donations so far this year in an unprecedented use of a fundraising account that can accept unlimited, loosely-regulated contributions in support of a presidential bid.
Disclosures filed Sunday show a supremely flush reserve for the man seeking to lead some 300 million-plus Americans, bankrolled by a few dozen in the finance industry, with some donations coming directly from corporations and others ascribed to near-anonymous addresses in Utah.
The total far overshadows that of similarly-structured funds set up to collect unlimited contributions in support of President Obama’s re-election.
Of four $1 million donations, two came from cryptically-named limited liability companies, or LLCs, sharing the same office suite in Provo, Utah. The only one with a recognizable name attached arrived from the 50th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper: The offices of John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who made millions of dollars an hour betting on the implosion of the housing market.
Illustrating the poor disclosure that accompanies the lack of monetary limits on such accounts, the final million-dollar donation was reported simply as coming from “W Spann LLC” of 590 Madison Ave. in New York, with no suite number or other identifying information. That building has housed offices for Paulson, lobbyists Akin Gump and Bain Capital, the hedge fund Mr. Romney once led.
Indeed, our hero, showing none of the investigative skills of a latter day Sherlock Holmes, has managed to discover less information than was printed in the Washington Times four days ago.
At this rate, by sometime next week Isikoff will be unable to confirm or deny the existence of this person known as Mitt Romney.
Of course there is always the possibility that Isikoff did read the Washington Times piece and this is just a garden variety example of plagiarism.
That is modern jurnalism in a nutshell: incompetence or plagiarism.
What a choice!
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