Did Romney Violate The Law ?

It was bad enough when Romney was just refusing to release his tax returns or trying to hide when he actually left Bain Capital. In both of these instances it is pretty clear he is trying to hide some kind of information that will embarrass him, and probably even hurt his campaign for the presidency. But there is no evidence that he has done anything illegal (at least that we know of).

But there is now a new scandal breaking, and it may indeed be illegal. Remember the little trip overseas that Romney took a couple of weeks ago? Well, Romney held fundraisers on that trip in London and Israel (several in Israel). I thought it was strange that he was holding foreign fundraisers at the time, but thought surely he wasn't fishing for foreign money -- surely he was just looking for money of American citizens living abroad (which would be legal).

But it looks like that may not have been true. Veterans Today is reporting that money was evidently raised from foreign contributors. They say that Romney met with diamond merchants from Russia while in Tel Aviv, and probably accepted donations from them. There is also now talk of money coming from India, Switzerland, Great Britain, and elsewhere.

Making it look more suspicious is the fact that no reporters were allowed into the meetings or allowed to talk to the donors -- and no records were kept of who was at the fundraisers or how much was raised. At least, none of this kind of information was released.

If Romney did raise money from individuals who were not American citizens, or corporations that are owned by foreign nationals, then he broke campaign finance law. That would make him not only ineligible to become president, but subject to legal charges and a possible prison sentence. The Supreme Court made it clear in an order they issued just last January -- so the Romney campaign should have been aware of it. Here is how the NY Times reported the Supreme Court action on January 9th in an article by John H. Cushman Jr.:

In a terse four words, the Supreme Court on Monday issued an order upholding prohibitions against foreigners making contributions to influence American elections.

The decision clamped shut an opening that some thought the court had created two years ago in its Citizens United decision, when it relaxed campaign-finance limits on corporations and labor unions. On Monday the Supreme Court, upholding a lower court’s decision in Bluman, et al., v. Federal Election Commission, refused to extend its reasoning in Citizens United to cover foreigners living temporarily here.

Foreign nationals, other than lawful permanent residents, are completely banned from donating to candidates or parties, or making independent expenditures in federal, state or local elections.

The Supreme Court’s order did not discuss the merits or suggest that there was any dissent among the justices.

Is Romney going to try and stonewall this like he is doing on the tax return question? That may not be possible, since this is a question of whether he violated United States law. It is time for Romney to clear this matter up -- and an assurance from him that he did nothing wrong is not adequate, since he has already lied too many times in this campaign. He needs to release the list of all donors in all fundraising meetings held outside the United States -- and that means releasing their names, their country of citizenship, and the amount of money they donated.

And they cannot get away with this by funneling the money through corporations and into some Romney super-PAC. The Supreme Court made it clear that was illegal also. No foreign national or corporations can spend money to influence an American election in any way.

Romney seems to be piling up a long list of things he would like to keep secret from the American people -- his tenure at Bain Capital, his tax returns, and now donations received overseas. What is he hiding? Did he break the law? The American people have a right to know!

(Thanks goes to my friend Shaun at A Sane Break From The Insanity for the heads up on this important story.)