Swiftboat Money Man Ponies Up $9 Million for Conservative Attack GroupsOver at Election Central, Greg has just posted the latest opus from the Free Enterprise Fund, a conservative attack group that’s been running ads against Democrats in four of the closest Senate races, “Brokebank Democrats.”
The Free Enterprise Fund is just one of the three groups that have been started up with cash from Bob Perry, the man who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Perry provided the bulk of the FEF’s money with a $1 million contribution.
He’s also almost exclusively responsible for the funding of two other groups that have been very active this campaign. The Economic Freedom Fund, whose activities we’ve catalogued here, received $5 million from Perry. The group has targeted six House races. Another group, Americans for Honesty on Issues, has attacked nine House Dem candidates and Senate candidate Jon Tester in Montana. The entirety of their funding comes from two contributions of Perry’s totalling $3 million.
All together, that’s $9 million of attack ads, courtesy of Bob Perry.
Update: Today CREW filed a complaint with the IRS against Americans for Honesty of Issues, alleging that the group had failed to file disclosure reports with the IRS, as required by federal law. Such a failure could result in as much as a $1 million fine. Lawyer Glenn Willard who represents the group told me that AHI had in fact filed with the IRS, but that the filings had not shown up on the IRS website “due to the IRS failing to provide an electronic filing password.”
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