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IPFS News Link • Voting and Elections

FEC: Joe Biden 2008 Presidential Campaign Must Pay $219,000

• The Huffingtion Post

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- Election watchdogs have directed Joe Biden's 2008 presidential campaign to pay the U.S Treasury more than $219,000 to resolve issues caused by sloppy bookkeeping and accepting excessive contributions, including a discounted flight on a private jet.

The audit was released Friday by the Federal Election Commission.

It determined that the Biden campaign accepted an improper corporate contribution in the form of a round-trip flight between New Hampshire and Iowa in June 2007 for three people. The Biden campaign paid GEH Air Transportation $7,911 for the first-class airfare, but regulators say the campaign should have paid the charter rate of $34,800.

The FEC also found that the Biden campaign could not document repaying at least $106,000 in donations that were over the limit, and the campaign was ordered to pay the U.S. Treasury more than $85,000 for stale-dated checks.

The Biden campaign also failed to disclose more than $3.7 million in payments and roughly $870,000 in debts.

The audit was conducted in part as a condition of Biden's accepting taxpayer funds for his campaign through the presidential public financing system.

Biden, now the vice president, campaigned for president for nearly a year before dropping out in January 2008 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses.


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