Michele Bachmann files FEC report using false address

Is presidential candidate being deliberately deceitful by using bogus address with state, FEC?

By Karl Bremer

For the second time in a week, Ripple in Stillwater has discovered Michele Bachmann using a false address on official government filings. This time it’s on two Federal Election Commission (FEC) receipts for “mileage reimbursement.”

Bachmann’s old Stillwater address where she hasn’t lived for three years was reported on two campaign disbursement receipts that her campaign filed with the FEC earlier this year. One was for $74.80 on Feb. 3, 2011; the other was for $562.51 on Feb. 7, 2011. Both were for payments to Bachmann. It would seem to be hard to explain how a candidate’s own campaign could still be using a 2008 address for the candidate on 2011 FEC reports—particularly when one of the disbursements to the candidate requires a “receipt, invoice or cancelled check.” 

Federal election campaign laws state that “The treasurer of a political committee shall keep an account of … the name and address of every person to whom any dis­bursement is made, the date, amount, and purpose of the disbursement, and the name of the candidate and the office sought by the candidate, if any, for whom the disbursement was made, including a receipt, in­voice, or cancelled check for each disbursement in excess of $200.”

It may take a complaint filed with the FEC to determine what address was listed on the receipt, invoice or check that Bachmann provided her campaign for her reimbursement. The FEC frowns on candidates filing false information, and it looks especially bad when the information is the candidate’s own address on a reimbursement receipt. 

It’s not likely the current owners of Bachmann’s old house would be happy to find out that she’s been using their address on her legal filings, either, because this isn’t the first time.

Ripple in Stillwater reported last week that Bachmann listed the same phony address on her annual state lawyer’s registration filed July 11, 2011. According to the state’s “Rules of the Supreme Court on Lawyer Registration,” that should result in an automatic suspension of Bachmann’s right to practice law in Minnesota and render her status “not in good standing.”

It's also not the first time Bachmann's mileage reimbursements have been questioned. DumpBachmann.com noted a suspicious FEC receipt for $6,230 in "mileage reimbursement" to Marcus Bachmann, Michele's husband, back in 2007.