Dallas Ingemunson

Miguel has made a few good points in the last couple of days - let me deal with a few in this post:

Miguel A):

"Hey, I just fond something else. The FEC report says Hastert's treasurer listed name and address of everyone making a contribution under $200. But NOT THE AMOUNT. One of the red flags would be amounts just under $200, such as a lot of contributions for $195. But since amounts are not listed, there is no way to evaluate.
[snip]
This is significant, if true, for it could render the list almost totally useless. You could not match the amounts on the list with the previously reported unitemized totals. Just as importantly, if you get a list of names that look suspicious, you cannot estimate how much each suspicious individuals might have donated. Does that make sense?"

Yep - sure does make sense. HFCC responded simply to the 'foreign names', 'foreign addresses' and 'foreign banks' claims - which are all largely irrelevant and are not responsive to the main claim.

Miguel B):

"The letter to CREW from the FEC says documents related to the case will be placed in the public record within 30 days. Should we wait for the 30 days to pass before filing the FOIA request?"

The law dealing with that is called the "Statement of Policy Regarding Disclosure of Closed Enforcement and Related Files" - details here (legalese warning).

Firstly, it isn't immediately obvious whether FEC will release all of the documents that they have - although I can't see any particular reason why they wouldn't.

As noted above, there isn't likely to be much useful in the documents that FEC has - just names and addresses, and it isn't obvious that would be of much assistance. It is possible that the list would also include the dates of the contributions which may be of some use/interest - specifically if we can identify periods of high activity outside of the 'annual events'.

Perhaps the best that we could hope for is to find some fake names and addresses. Also, we would learn the answer to how many names were listed on each page, which would answer the question I asked yesterday. Further, it is possible that HFCC made some supporting claims in their affadavit that were not mentioned in FEC's response to CREW.


Earlier, I asked:

"is it standard practice that the assistant treasurer would respond to a complaint of this nature? Or did they nominate her for the job so that she could correctly claim that the statement was true 'to her knowledge'?"

Miguel C):

"One issue you brought up is the Treasurer vs. Assistant Treasurer. Here is what FEC regs says about this issue:

"Assistant Treasurer

The Commission urges every committee to designate an assistant treasurer on its Statement of Organization. An assistant treasurer may assume the treasurer’s duties when the treasurer is unavailable or has resigned. 102.7(a)."

So the assistant treasurer is supposedly there when the Treasurer is unavailable. Kind of convenient that Hastert's treasurer wasn't around when it came time to sign the affadavit, huh?"

It sure does look a little convenient. Anyone have any thoughts?

Incidentally, FEC's response lists some dates in the meta-data of the report, although the meaning of them isnt entirely clear:

Date Complaint Filed: August 16, 05
Date of Notification: August 22, 2005
Last Response Received: Sep 7, 2005
Date Activated: Nov 7, 2005
Expiration of Statute of Limitations: (rolling from) Jan1 05 to Dec31 06

I presume that 'notification' means that HFCC was notified on that day, and that all responses from HFCC were received Sep 7, and perhaps FEC 'activated' an official investigation a month later (?). (alternatively, perhaps the initial back and forth was between CREW and FEC, and HFCC wasn't officially contacted till Nov 7 when the investigation was opened.)

Anyhow, for one reason or other, Treasurer Dallas Ingemunson wasn't available - either to write the affadavit or sign any of the documents - even though Dallas Ingemunson was personally named as a respondent in the affadavit. Incidentally, at least according to one political reporter, Dallas Ingemunson, is regarded as Hastert's "political godfather".

crossposted at wotisitgood4