THE MOTHER-IN-LAW ALLOCATION …
We’ve been ripping U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney pretty hard since he decided to run off and join the “Republican” establishment.
Like … ripping him hard.
Now that he’s trying to run back … we’re not sure what to think of the guy.
Whatever we wind up thinking of the third-term congressman, though, we’re not going to take gratuitous swipes at him – you know, like the “breaking” campaign finance scandal reported late Friday by McClatchy Newspapers.
According to the news service’s Washington, D.C. correspondent Vera Bergengruen, Mulvaney paid his late mother-in-law Isobel Lynch $500 a month from December 2009 until her death two years later.
“The payments don’t appear to be illegal,” Bergengruen reported. “But they could race questions as Mulvaney faces a challenge from Democrat Fran Person for South Carolina’s 5th District congressional seat.”
Really? Raise questions?
The only “question” raised by this story is as follows: What the hell was this reporter thinking?
First of all this is campaign money – not tax money. That doesn’t mean expenditures like this shouldn’t be scrutinized (and any corruption exposed), but Mulvaney wasn’t ripping off the Treasury to pay this woman.
Also, Mulvaney hasn’t made a payment to Lynch from his campaign account in five years … again, because she died.
Perhaps most importantly, it appears that while Lynch was alive she actually did a considerable amount of work for Mulvaney – meaning she earned what he paid her.
According to Mulvaney’s campaign, Lynch tracked and recorded small-dollar donations, arranged and staffed fundraising events, wrote thank-you notes to donors and even represented her son-in-law at campaign events.
Oh, and roughly 15 percent of the money Mulvaney paid her came in the form of reimbursements for postage.
Yeah … what a scandal!
This is the point when most reporters (even those with axes to grind against Mulvaney) probably would have told whoever it was pitching them this nonsense “um, yeah … thanks but no thanks.”
Honestly …
“Congressman paid now-deceased mother-in-law for real work five years ago.”
Stop. The. Presses.
Again, this website hasn’t had much nice to say about Mulvaney lately. But this is a lame ass hit if you ask us … which is why we felt compelled to call it out for what it was as opposed to piling on the B-grade “scandal.”
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