A check shows a donor's support for the campaign of Mike Miller, who defeated John Ward, that was released when the Montana district court judge unsealed the bank records of Western Tradition Partnership at the request of Frontline and ProPublica. (Photo credit: text to link herePBS Frontline )

By Kim Barker,ProPublica, and Rick Young and Emma Schwartz, Frontline, Nov. 5, 2012, 10:19 a.m.

Nov. 5: This post has been updated.

This story was co-published with PBS Frontline.

The donors wrote notes on their checks like "Go get 'em!" or "Stop Obama." They scrawled in names of candidates for office in Montana and Colorado, or simply "oil & gas."

But unlike donors to political committees, the names of those who gave to Western Tradition Partnership, or WTP, were never supposed to be made public.

That changed Friday after a Montana district court judge released the social welfare nonprofit's bank records at the request of Frontline and ProPublica, saying citizens had a right to know.

It was the first time that a court has ordered a modern dark money group's donors to be made public, firing a warning shot to similar organizations engaged in politics.

The WTP bank records, which cover a period from March 2008 to December 2010, show that the group raised almost $1.1 million from other social welfare nonprofits, corporations, a political committee and individuals. It received $650,000 from the nonprofits, $70,000 from an Oklahoma businessman and his company and $50,000 from a Colorado homebuilder. Most WTP contributors, however, gave on a smaller scale: 495 of the group's 607 donations were for $100 or less.

The total amount raised by WTP, now known as American Tradition Partnership, was not large, compared to the tens of millions of dollars dark money groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity have collected in the 2012 election cycle.

But the details available on WTP, which has worked to elect conservatives in Montana and Colorado and has won national attention for a lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to apply its Citizens United ruling to states, are striking.

The bank records highlight WTP's ties to groups backing libertarian Ron Paul. The Conservative Action League, a Virginia social welfare nonprofit run at the time in part by John Tate, most recently Paul's campaign manager, transferred $40,000 to WTP in August 2008, bank records show. Tate was also a consultant for WTP. In addition, WTP gave $5,000 to a group called the SD Campaign for Liberty, affiliated with Paul and the national Campaign for Liberty.

Continue reading »

Yes, if there's a tax loophole, Mitt Romney has found it and is using it. During the Clinton administration, Congress cracked down on a favorite tax shelter of the rich and powerful, but allowed those who already had them established to keep them. Thus Mitt Romney was grandfathered into a tax shelter that appears to be a charitable contribution to the Mormon Church that won't actually contribute much to the church, and instead pays the Romney's "a stream of yearly cash" much like an IRA account. As Bloomberg News explains, it's rather like "renting" your favorite charity's tax exemption.

Bloomberg News:

In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.

Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney, then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, who had just established such an arrangement in June 1996.

The charitable remainder unitrust, as it is known, is one of several strategies Romney has adopted over his career to reduce his tax bill. While Romney’s tax avoidance is legal and common among high-net-worth individuals, it has become an issue in the campaign. President Barack Obama attacked him in their second debate for paying “lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less.”

In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity -- the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing -- to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.
...
“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said. Despite the name, giving a gift or getting a charitable deduction “is just a throwaway,” he said. “I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero.”

When individuals fund a charitable remainder unitrust, or “CRUT,” they defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of yearly cash payments. Like an individual retirement account, the trust allows money to grow tax deferred, while like an annuity it also pays Romney a steady income. After the funder’s death, the trust’s remaining assets go to a designated charity.

So Romney pays no taxes on any growth his "CRUT" account earns, but if you and I earn a nickel in interest on a small savings account...we do pay taxes. Go figure.

And as always, the Romney campaign declined to answer written questions about the trust.

“The trust has operated in accordance with the law,” Michele Davis, a campaign spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Thousands of Occupy Oakland Protesters succeed in shutting down the Oakland Port in December of last year. The Oakland Port is the 5th busiest in the United States.

Not surprising that the FBI was keeping close tabs on Occupy Oakland last year, but documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show agents were particularly interested in planned protests to shutdown West Coast ports.

Via:

The FBI kept a watchful eye on the local Occupy movement last year, especially while it was planning protests to shutdown West Coast ports, according to documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California.

The 13 pages, obtained in a public record request, include FBI reports on Occupy protests in Oakland, a Jan. 27 meeting on how to deal with a possible Occupy Oakland action the following day at the Oakland International Airport, and an FBI alert to private corporate security officials before the attempted shutdown of the Port of Oakland on Dec. 12.

More troubling to the ACLU is that the bureau has refused to release an additional 24 pages of documents it acknowledges having, citing the need to protect confidential informants and protect national security.

"What we are really interested in finding out is why Occupy rises to that level," said ACLU attorney Linda Lye. "The bottom line issue for us is Occupy is a political activist organization, and the FBI has a history of surveilling political activists."

According to Lye, the ACLU suspects the FBI has far more documents than they have acknowledged regarding the local Occupy movement, and will continue efforts to obtain those reports.