Poor, naive progressives really thought that Jill Stein was going to prove that Hillary won. The only winner here is Jill Stein.
On Dec 1, I wrote that, "At the end of this scam, Stein has to have a compelling pitch in place to redesignate the funds."
Because while Jill Stein can't just keep all the money she raised, she can ask her donors if they want it back or if the cash can be redesignated elsewhere. Now, after the scam has just about ended, Jill is preparing her pitch.
With her three-state recount effort effectively over, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on Tuesday announced her plans for what’s next: to ask donors which organizations should receive the campaign’s leftover money.
First, a look at where some of the money went...
Included in that $7.4 million estimate is just under $4.5 million for state filing fees, $1.6 million for legal fees, $212,500 for staff salaries, $364,000 for consultants and $353,618 for administrative expenses.
The bottom 3 are great ways to build your own operation and provide kickbacks to your pals and maybe even put money in your own pocket. That's not to say that there's any evidence Jill Stein did that, but I suspect her paperwork will be thoroughly looked over before long by bloggers more to the left.
tein’s campaign is planning to reach out to each of its 161,000 donors and ask them to vote on which “non-partisan election reform and voting rights organizations” will receive the leftover money. The campaign did not immediately release a list of possible organizations, but said it will do so “in the coming weeks” when it begins surveying donors.
Under FEC law, money raised into a recount account can only be used for recount-related expenses -- and a campaign must reach out to donors to either refund their excess donations or ask them whether the funds can be used for another purpose. Based on Tuesday’s announcement, it sounds like Stein’s campaign is looking to go the route of repurposing the funds.
Of course it is. And mentions of the refund will be buried at the bottom while the donors will be hit with the big money pitch.