As The Heat On Him Rose, Bob Perry Pulled A Leininger

If you read no other MSM story today, read this one.

Why? Because it brings to light an interesting fact: Bob Perry pulled a Leininger.

That’s right: he made a sizeable donation to a political action committee that ended up directly benefitting Rick Perry.

James Leininger’s been doing this for years, and is so bold he creates his own PACs. In homebuilder Perry’s case, however, he used an existing one: The Republican Governor’s Association:

As much as $1million from controversial Houston homebuilder Bob Perry appears to have flowed into Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign last year indirectly through the Republican Governor’s Association Political Action Committee.

Bob Perry could have legally donated an unlimited amount of money to the governor’s campaign. But campaign reform activists said he may have preferred to pass it through a committee to hide the source of the funds for political reasons.

No kidding. If one donor other than Leininger was the punching bag of the MSM and blogs last cycle, it was Bob Perry (no relation to the governor of the same name).
Gov. Perry, who is not related to the builder, was not the only Republican candidate financially supported by the RGA last year, but the timing of two of Bob Perry’s donations to the RGA leaves the impression that it was a back-door donation to the governor.

And, check this out:

In one instance, Bob Perry made a $500,000 donation to the RGA on Oct. 31, according to RGA reports filed with the federal Internal Revenue Service. The very next day, the RGA made a $500,000 donation to Gov. Perry’s re-election campaign.

I’m confused. I thought it was illegal to earmark PAC donations—federally or in Texas—to go to a specific candidate. That’s not the only instance, either:

Earlier in October, Bob Perry gave $1 million to the RGA. Later in the month, the RGA donated $500,000 to Gov. Perry’s campaign.

Of course, the RGA denies that the donations were “earmarked,” as does Bob Perry, and TPJ says it’d be difficult to prove they were:

A spokesman for the homebuilder said any coincidence between the timing of Bob Perry’s donations to the RGA and association contributions to Perry’s campaign are a “happenstance.” The RGA also denied earmarking Bob Perry’s money to the governor’s campaign.

The association had never contributed to Perry’s campaigns prior to last year’s re-election bid, according to Texas Ethics Commission records.

An advocate for campaign finance reform said the donations had the appearance of a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge, let’s-put-it-through-the-back-door” operation.

Andrew Wheat, a campaign finance reform advocate with Texans for Public Justice, said proving the donations were intentionally linked would be difficult.

“The timing doesn’t sound coincidental. It sounds like something that was set up to be a pass-through … to water-down the degree that Gov. Perry is Bob Perry’s patsy,” Wheat said.

RGA Executive Director Nick Ayers said there was no “earmarking” of any of Bob Perry’s donations for the governor’s campaign. Ayers said the association complied with all campaign laws and publicly disclosed both contributions it received and donations it made.

Whether it can be proven or not, and whether they were “earmarked” or not, the donations do seem quite odd in the context of all this.

Tweet This Post   Ping This Post

Bookmark It