Carol Moseley Braun Failed To Document $315,000 In Campaign Funds: Report

After a campaign season that was embarrassing at times, former U.S. Senator and mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun is once again in the spotlight -- for allegedly failing to disclose where $315,000 in campaign money went.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC Chicago, the Illinois Board of Elections has reached out to Braun several times, trying to find out how she spent the $315,000. Candidates are required by law to file campaign disclosure statements, but she is the only Chicago mayoral candidate who failed to do so.

When asked by reporters why she did not file, she blamed longtime friend and former treasurer, Billie Paige.

“If Billie Paige neglected to do so, it doesn’t surprise; she is elderly and overwhelmed,” Braun told the reporting team.

Paige said she did her part and that she wished Braun well.

Throughout the campaign, Braun did not respond to criticism well. She accused one of her opponents of being "on crack," called a newspaper columnist a "drunk wife-beater," and accused the former police chief of knowing nothing about Chicago. Her financial woes were also an issue during the campaign.

As the Associated Press reported in February, when other candidates released their tax returns, she refused. When she relented, the documents showed her tea and coffee company was struggling, raising questions about her ability to run a city already in deep financial trouble.

The Sun-Times and NBC Chicago report mentions her woes after being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992:

Even as she won that year, Braun was plagued with questions about finances. There was a Medicaid issue involving the sale of her mother’s property. That was followed by her 1998 re-election campaign in which questions were raised regarding how $280,000 in campaign funds was spent. The IRS questioned the spending of, among other things: $70,000 on clothes, $18,000 on jewelry and $64,000 on trips, including to Hawaii, Africa and Europe.

“I have not seen an example worse than this of a committee with this kind of money,” David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, told the Sun-Times. “The basic idea here is that the public has a right to know where the money is coming from and where it is going.”

Read more about Braun's disclosure issue here.

Comments

[John MC]

05:16 PM on 10/03/2011

She has really been one big disappoint after another when you look over her political career and accomplishments. Don’t forget taking her boyfriend to Africa to see a dictator – that was a good one.

I couldn't believe that she was given the black-caucus support to be their choice to run for mayor. I swear someone paid them off so Rahm could get elected, how else could they have picked her?

[Edward Wilkes]

10:47 AM on 10/01/2011

They should look into all the money Sarah Palin has collected this year on her bus tour to nowhere!

[60699]

10:59 AM on 10/01/2011

Ah, but Sarah is not a candidate, so campaign finance laws do not apply to her. She may be politically vapid, but she is getting great financial advice.

[Edward Wilkes]

04:00 PM on 10/01/2011

In my opinion Vapid and insipid Politically yes, but a con artist as well!

[corwin]

09:05 AM on 10/01/2011

I'd really like to see more HP comments on this.Can't we pretend it's Sarah Palin's fault? Or Michelle Bachman's . It's so dreary to read of another problem in Illinois

[Bystander]

04:38 PM on 10/03/2011

Corwin, you completely forgot to invoke the Bush Derangement Syndrome!! If that doesn't work, then Braun's critics can be called racists, bigots, misogynists and teaba**ers. If that fails, then accuse them of being capitalists, America exceptionalists, traditionalists, Christians or, dare I say it, "patriots." Anything is better than the truth...that's "lib logic."

[YOKEL13]

01:06 AM on 10/01/2011

She doesn't seem to learn.

[dsa1115]

12:58 AM on 10/01/2011

Carol is in one financial scandal after another. And now she's stonewalling. Good grief. Just another crooked Illinois politician.

[crookedcountyillinois]

08:19 PM on 09/30/2011

Illinois has one of the most relaxed set of laws, concerning campaign contributions, of all 50 states; and our culture of politicians is one where people have almost no regard for the very few requirements that stand.

And this is mainly because State's Attorney's and the Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, and her predecessors, like Jim Ryan, refuse to prosecute anyone under the criminal code after the Board of Elections makes one of its rulings concerning the Campaign Disclosure Act, usually bearing only a monetary consequence.

The end result: we get more corruption, graft, and quid pro quo, than is normal for one very important state. And one of the biggest problems, that people really just don't know, is that politicians use their campaign funds as a means of paying their living expenses, like car payments, meals out on the town, and office equipment, and even make PAC donations to nonprofits, and get buildings, statutes, rooms, and books named after them, for spending someone else's money.

Case in point, Jim Edgar is still spending money out of his campaign, and he hasn't ran for anything since 1994. So, to what campaign is this money being spent? Well, the campaign of Jim Edgar's living expenses. Yep. That campaign.

And that's not even the funny part: he still gets contributions, namely from other politicians.

[corwin]

04:05 PM on 09/30/2011

I don't know why everyone is picking on CMB.It's a plot by the Smart People to embarass Chcago Democrats.And,the Non Smart Community as a whole. But, I repeat myself

[gregcurts]

02:34 PM on 09/30/2011

She paid her bills....follow the money....

[BushBites]

01:56 PM on 09/30/2011

She's a real prize.