FEC fines Lieberman campaign $50,000 over street money

Joe Presses the Flesh (and Glares at the Press), originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein.

The FEC finally fined Joe Lieberman's campaign for improperly dumping over a hundred thousand dollars in cash on the street in the final days of the Lieberman/Lamont primary in 2006:

The FEC reached the plea deal with Lieberman’s campaign in February. The terms of the agreement were released publicly by the agency on Friday.

Lieberman’s campaign “withdrew very large amounts of cash from its bank account on 14 separate occasions and gave the money to campaign consultants and volunteers who put cash in envelopes that were disbursed to canvassers, frequently in amounts well in excess of $100,” agency lawyers wrote. “Of the $344,496 paid to canvassers, the committee made at least 600 payments, totaling $121,965, which exceeded the petty cash limit of $100 per person.”

Campaigns are supposed to document their expenditures. Understandably, election authorities take a dim view of candidates handing out fistfuls of bills to anyone who can hold a sign and calling it all petty cash.

Comments

[Eric Jaffa]

Joe Lieberman will now resign in shame.

Unless he's shameless.

[Brien Jackson]

Ah, petty cash funds.

They really couldn't make it look like they didn't drop under $100 a pop? Idiots.

[Lesley]

Poor Joe Lieberman doesn't realize he's a sociopath.

[cfrost]

Is that Joe or is that a shriveled apple doll?

[Hartington]

In Europe Dickens described this in the 19th century, relative to the Eatanswill Election ,as bribery.

[Agi]

Who ever said you can't buy votes in the USA?

[Jesmi]

What does this have to do with the hefty fine for being morally challenged? Or do you have the same problem?

[Matthew Burton-Kelly]

Why did you close the comments on the Teredo post? Luckily cfrost got to it before you did. I was on my way to post the same correction.

From North Dakota, land of Teredo wood.