The Michigan Democratic Party filed an official complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, alleging that the Michigan Republican Party and the Republican National Committee struck a deal to get around campaign finance limits and launder roughly half a million dollars in contributions from Michigan residents through the RNC and back to the Michigan GOP.
These allegations first came to light with an article in the Daily Caller last week, which we reported on at the time. The Michigan GOP denies any wrongdoing in the matter, but now the FEC will presumably open an investigation reach its own conclusion.
The Daily Caller cited an unnamed source within the GOP:
“It was a known secret that a deal had been struck on the topic,” a former RNC official confirmed to The Daily Caller.
“I think the benefit to them was them getting guaranteed money,” the source said of the Michigan GOP, “and the benefit to the RNC was getting higher fundraising numbers.”
The article also noted that FEC reports showed that a group of Michigan donors all maxed out their contributions to the RNC in the last days of 2009, donating nearly half a million dollars collectively. The RNC then transferred that money back to the state party in two payments in early 2010.
Gerry Hebert, one of the nation’s foremost election law experts and executive director of the Campaign Legal Center told the Michigan Messenger, “As for the chances of success, it seems to us as if it’s a violation of the statutory prohibition on contributions in the name of another (the original source donors making contributions to the state party committee in the name of the RNC) to circumvent (and in violation of) the $10,000 state party contribution limit.”