A former staffer for an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now testified today that the organization was provided a "donor list" from the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in late 2007 for fundraising efforts.Anita Moncrief, a former Washington, D.C. staffer for Project Vote, which she described as a sister organization of ACORN, said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from the Obama campaign. Moncrief said she has a copy of a "development plan" that outlines how Obama contributors who had "maxed out" under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors.
Evidence of the Obama Campaign's systematic flouting of election finance laws was reported by the Washington Post:
Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.
Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.
The disabled security features enable donors to funnel huge amounts of foreign and illegal money to the campaign, by breaking the amounts up into smaller than $200 amounts, the precise details of which the campaign is not required to report. This is a deliberate exploitation of loopholes in the law, with the clear intention to commit fraud.
By the way, each fraudulent contribution entails a 2 year prison term, and they are to be served consecutively.
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