More Revelations About Petters Associate and Politician

Karl Bremer has the scoop at The Minnesota Independent :

Last fall, the Minnesota Independent reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann’s campaign made a $9,200 charitable contribution to the faith-based drug treatment program Minnesota Teen Challenge on Oct. 3, 2008, in an effort to wash its hands of tainted contributions from Tom Petters associate Frank Vennes, Jr.

The Minnesota Independent has recently learned that Minnesota Teen Challenge returned the donation to Bachmann two weeks later.

“We didn’t want to be involved if it was dirty money,” Rich Scherber, executive director of Minnesota Teen Challenge, told MnIndy.

The article continues to describe the relationship between Bachmann, Vennes and MNTC.

Bachmann apparently delayed disclosure of the money being returned:

Rep. Bachmann failed to report the money being returned to her campaign until her first quarter 2009 campaign filing, a possible violation of Federal Election Commission rules.

The $9,200 — the same amount Vennes and his wife had contributed to Bachmann’s campaign in 2008 — did not show up on Bachmann’s pre-election, post-election or year-end quarterly FEC filings. According to federal rules, the returned contribution should have shown up on one of these reports if it was returned to Bachmann’s campaign in October, as Scherber claims.

Bachmann’s first quarter report shows that the Minnesota Teen Challenge donation was returned to the campaign on Jan. 1, 2009.

“We reported it properly,” says Bachmann staffer Marston. “We reported it when it was received.” Marston confirmed that the contribution was received on Jan. 1, and she could not explain the discrepancy with Scherber’s claim that the funds were sent back in October.

The FEC prescribes financial penalties for “a failure to make the required disclosures … at the time and in the manner prescribed” or for “a failure to include any of the information required to be shown by such disclosures or to show the correct information.”

Read the entire article at MnIndy.

Here's the first of 4 audio files I uploaded to You Tube of Frank Vennes giving a talk in February of 2007 titled "God and Money":



WCCO's Esme Murphy asked Bachmann about the contribution from Frank Vennes Jr. in this interview:



(Cross-posted at the Dump Bachmann blog)