John Boehner is Under Federal Investigation for Campaign Finance Violations

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The FEC has announced that they are investigating Speaker of the House John Boehner for accepting dozens of illegal donations from the coal, energy, and gambling industries.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

The Federal Election Commission is examining whether dozens of political action committees and individuals contributed more than the legally allowed amount to House Speaker John Boehner during last year’s election cycle.

Letters the Federal Election Committee sent Monday to Friends of John Boehner indicated that donors including coal, energy, and gambling interests, exceeded contribution limits to Boehner’s committee by more than $150,000.

Among the groups that were allegedly overgenerous to Boehner were Coalpac and Minepac, which represent the mining industry, as well as political committees representing the Exelon, Constellation and Luminant power companies, and the Ceasars and Penn National gambling enterprises.

“Although the commission may take further legal action concerning the acceptance of excessive contributions, your prompt action to refund the excessive amount will be taken into consideration,” the letters say.

Boehner’s ties with special interest groups, and his eagerness to brazenly take their money is well known, but the Speaker may have pushed things way too far in 2012. Speaker Boehner seems to have dodged an SEC investigation into his financial involvement with the companies that would benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, but it appears that lure of Citizens United fueled conservative cash was too much for the Speaker to resist last year.

Rep. Boehner was the House’s top fundraiser last year. This was a matter of political survival. The unpopular within his own party speaker raised more than $22 million, which he used to solidify his position by buying loyalty through donations to House Republican reelection campaigns.

Similar allegations against Boehner surfaced in June, when an FEC complaint was filed against him for accepting $2.5 million in illegal donations from the Venezuelan government run Chevron. It turns out that Boehner’s illegal activities go way beyond Keystone XL and Chevron.

Speaker Boehner’s has been getting away with these kinds of illegal activities for decades, but the walls may finally be closing in on one of the worst Speakers in American political history.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association