Economic Collapse

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Did Rachel Maddow Stumble Last Year Across a Key Piece of Evidence of Hush Money Paid in the #CruzSexScandal?
There is speculation that a Ted Cruz related SuperPAC may have paid hush money last year to the Carly Fiorina campaign to keep it from disclosing a Cruz sex scandal.

The speculation is the result of a just released National Enquirer story on alleged multiple sexual trysts of Ted Cruz outside his marriage.

Although National Enquirer blurred the pictures of the women allegedly involved, internet sleuths have been at work attempting to identify them. One name emerging is Amanda Carpenter, though, she has denied any sexual involvement with Cruz.

However, a curious payment of $500,000 was made to the Fiorina campaign by a Cruz SuperPAC. There is now speculation that it may have been hush money to keep the Fiorina campaign from blowing open the Cruz sex scandal since Carpenter was employed at the Fiorina campaign at the time of the payment.

How curious was the payment? Last August, Rachel Maddow devoted an entire segment to reporting on the odd payment. Could she have stumbled on to a key piece of hush money evidence?

Watch for yourself, this is truly remarkable.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2016/03/did-rachael-maddow-stumble-last-year.html



It appears that after the Maddow report the FEC opened up an investigation, and the Maddow team reiterated the curious nature of the payment at the time news of the investigation emerged.

Steve Benen wrote at the Maddow Blog:


Back in early August, Rachel flagged a curious campaign-finance move that I still don’t understand. It has to do with one presidential candidate’s super PAC writing a generous check to support a rival candidate – a move that’s since drawn interest from the Federal Election Commission. To briefly recap, Ted Cruz has a super PAC called Keep the Promise that exists, naturally, because it supports Cruz’s national ambitions. That’s the point of a super PAC – to raise money to bolster the candidate that the group and its donors want to see win. But in a campaign-finance filing, amid Keep the Promise’s routine expenditures, there’s a $500,000 payment to CARLY for America. And if CARLY for America sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the name of the super PAC that’s backing Carly Fiorina, one of Ted Cruz’s many rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s pretty odd. Why would one candidate’s super PAC write a six-figure check in support of another candidate? The Washington Post reports that the Federal Election Commission is wondering the same thing.
People were left scratching their heads in July when Keep the Promise 1, one of a conglomerate of super PACs funded by deep-pocketed Cruz supporters (the others are cleverly named Keep the Promise PAC, Keep the Promise II and Keep the Promise III; don’t strain yourself, guys), revealed in its financial disclosures a $500,000 donation to Fiorina’s campaign. Keep the Promise 1 had a healthy $10 million on hand from an $11 million donation from hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer as of the end of June. But it only spent $536,169. A little for legal services. A little for surveys. And a whole lot for Fiorina. Even the Federal Election Commission is perplexed. […] So, the FEC, as it does, sent a letter Wednesday asking for “a brief statement or description of why each disbursement was made.”

The letter appears to have gone out this week, and the super PAC did not respond to the Washington Post’s request for comment.
-RW



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