A Super PAC supporting Ron Paul was the only major presidential fundraising operation to miss Tuesday's federal deadline for disclosing its donors. The Revolution PAC blamed an error by its credit card company.
Because of bad information provided by the company, the PAC told the Federal Election Commission, it didn't know who its donors were.
The Super PAC is not the same as the official campaign for Paul, a libertarian and Texas Republican member of Congress. The campaign filed its report on time, and by law the PAC can't coordinate its activities with the campaign, although the PAC is operated by Paul supporters, including his former political director.
"To Whom It May Concern," the Revolution PAC wrote to the FEC at 11:48 p.m. ET Tuesday, just 12 minutes before the midnight deadline for its legally required report.
"Please be advised that on the afternoon of Tuesday, Jan 31, Revolution PAC ... was advised by one of its credit card processing vendors that said vendor had provided erroneous information. As a result, credit card donations reported by the vendor and recorded by the PAC were erroneous.
"As we do not have compete details on the specific donations involved, we are unable to correct our information prior to the filing deadline, and are therefore not filing any report at this time.
"We will contact our FEC advisor Feb 1 to determine how best to proceed."
The Super PAC didn't name the credit card company.
The Revolution PAC has been filing its separate reports of expenditures, and has spent $126,000 so far, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
A profile of the group is available from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan investigative reporting group. Its leaders include Gary Franchi, Web-TV host and director of Restore the Republic, an online clearinghouse and social media site for Ron Paul followers; Lawrence W. Lepard, Venture capital investor at Equity Management Associates, and Penny Langford Freeman, Paul’s former political director.
Two other PACs supporting Paul did file their reports on time.
Endorse Liberty reported $1,020,055 in receipts.
Nearly all of its revenue, $900,000, came from hedge fund manager Peter Thiel, a founder of PayPal. The group also got $10,000 from Sean Wheeler of Marietta, Ga., CEO of Pure Hypnosis, which sells a hypnotic treatment for smoking addiction.
A list of the donors to Endorse Liberty is here.
Another pro-Paul PAC, the Santa Rita Super PAC, reported 234,096 in receipts.
Donors to Santa Rita include hedge fund manager Mark Hart III and Shannon Hart, of Fort Worth, $100,000; real estate investor Donald Huffines of Dallas, $50,000; and Patrick Walker of Little Rock, $50,000. All listed their occupation as self-employed investor.
A list of the donors to Santa Rita is here.
Super PACS are known to the Federal Election Commission as independent committees, because they are forbidden to coordinate their activities with campaigns. Outside the limits of campaign finance laws, Super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals. They can use that money to advocate for or against political candidates.
The Ron Paul presidential campaign organization filed its report on time, showing $26,104,721 in receipts and $24,199,806 in expenditures so far in this election.
A list of the campaign's 22,956 donors is here.
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