Two developments caught the attention of the political fund-raising world last week. First is the eye-popping amount of presidential campaign money Senator Ted Cruz’s supporters reported raising in just a week — $31 million in big checks from affluent conservatives. This bonanza offers further evidence that the 2016 election has already become a runaway race of “super PACs” allowed to raise unlimited funds from uber-rich donors out to reap political influence.
The second development may be troubling for fund-raisers but encouraging for voters — a signal from the Department of Justice that the booming world of super PACs is no longer out of bounds as an area to investigate for political corruption. This became clear in the indictment of Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, in a case that marked the first time large-scale donations to a super PAC were cited as evidence of bribery.
Court decisions have established that super PACs are supposed to act independently of a candidate, with no coordination permitted. But the indictment focused on the suspicious timing of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Mr. Menendez’s re-election campaign from a generous friend who allegedly sought government favors through the senator’s influence.
Full Article: On the Trail of Super PAC Money – NYTimes.com.