Criminal probe targets PAC funded by charter school management company

Filed 2h ago · Via Arizona Mirror · The Buffoon Desk

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Amazing Plan

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jonathan Haeber from Richmond, CA · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Educational Freedom Fund PAC, chaired by Charter One CEO Glenn Way, is under criminal investigation in Arizona for allegedly funneling corporate money into $83,200 of direct contributions to Republican legislative candidates, far exceeding the $9,000 it legally received from its lone individual donor. Charter One, which manages Way's 27 Arizona charter campuses, contributed nearly $200,000 to the PAC, money state law bars corporations from routing to candidates.

The PAC's attorneys blamed the fired treasurer for 'inadvertently' authorizing the contributions and argued the corporate money shouldn't count as corporate because Charter One is a single-member LLC treated as Way's personal assets for tax purposes. An election law attorney called the arrangement 'pretty clear cut' illegal, and Arizona's attorney general confirmed the investigation is ongoing.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Calling $200,000 from your own company 'not really corporate money' because of how your accountant files taxes is the kind of argument that only works if nobody in the room has ever filled out a form themselves. Firing the treasurer after the complaint landed reads less like accountability and more like finding a fall guy. Twenty five one-thousand-dollar checks to candidates don't happen by accident twice in two election cycles.

Source: Read the original at Arizona Mirror → Scored: Amazing Plan · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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