No, Social Media Warriors. Bernie Sanders Did Not Get $23M In 'Illegal Contributions'

[UCmeNdc]

From Crooks and Liars dot com:

I reviewed the whole report -- all 99,000 pages -- when I first saw the rumors swirling. After looking at it, it seemed to me that there were some fairly egregious errors in the report, but nothing nefarious. At best, it was incompetence and little more than that.

The allegation that he received $23 million in "illegal contributions." He did not. Here's what actually happened. ActBlue transmitted their collections on his behalf to the campaign, along with a report on who made the donations. When the Sanders campaign transferred those ActBlue donations to their report, they reported the entire amount transmitted by ActBlue as the aggregate contribution per donor, instead of each small donor's total contribution to the campaign.

So, if John Q Public made three $25 contributions via ActBlue to the campaign, his report entry showed the $25 contribution with an aggregate for the cycle of $23 million, instead of the correct amount of $75. The same is true for Jane Q Public's $25 contribution, and so on. There wasn't anything illegal about John and Jane Q Public's contributions at all, but it triggered a query because the aggregate contributions for them was over the aggregate limit of $2,700 for the primaries or $5,400 for the primary and the general.


http://crooksandliars.com/2016/03/no-social-media-warriors-bernie-sanders

[djean111]

1. Well, THAT'S no fun. For some here.

I find the attempted smearing of Bernie on money matters so ridiculous and hypocritical and pathetic that I don't know whether to laugh or sneer or pity.

[NWCorona]

4. After yesterday I'm done laughing

[misterhighwasted]

2. Nope. Not buying it.

Why did every other campaign except Sanders know how to properly report this:

ActBlue transmitted their collections on his behalf to the campaign, along with a report on who made the donations. When the Sanders campaign transferred those ActBlue donations to their report, they reported the entire amount transmitted by ActBlue as the aggregate contribution per donor, instead of each small donor's total contribution to the campaign. 

[mikehiggins]

3. Yeah, all those other campaigns with loads of small donations, like

uh, no. There aren't any, are there?

Oh, I know HRC sent out pleas for lots of $1 donations to dilute the optics of a whole lot of big ticket donors but the only thing Sanders did was say, "send us money."

Attributing nefarious intent, as if there might be some benefit in not dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" perfectly, just doesn't pass the smell test.

What bothers the competiton isn't that Sanders' campaign makes mistakes in reporting. Its the fact that people have donated millions and millions of dollars that have to be reported on. It isn't likely that the SEC is even equipped to handle the paperwork. And it gets worse. Even if he loses a primary the people send millions more.

Yeah, its hard to keep track of stuff like that but its the fact that this money keeps rolling in that raises the hair on the back of the Establishment's neck.

See youse guys at da convenshun

[djean111]

5. As if you had wanted to buy it.

As if, now that this is easily explained, you were going to switch from supporting Hillary.

Again, the utter incompetence of the HILLARY campaign trying to smear Bernie with financial bullshit is really really richly hypocritical.