News Outlets Send Letter To Romney Campaign Contesting Expenses

[Tx4obama]

News Outlets Send Letter To Romney Campaign Contesting Expenses

Nine news outlets that covered the election sent a joint letter Monday to former Romney campaign officials to contest expenses billed to their reporters.

BuzzFeed, which is among the outlets that signed the letter, first reported on the dispute last week.

The outlets are requesting that the campaign provide a specific price breakdown for every event that cost them $200 or more. Until then, the letter reads, "some of our organizations have alerted American Express that we are contesting these charges."

The letter was sent to former campaign manager Matt Rhoades, and senior advisers Kevin Madden, Stuart Stevens, Beth Myers, Eric Fehrnstrom, and Russ Schriefer, among others.

Here's the letter:

-snip-

Article and copy of letter here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/news-outlets-send-letter-to-romney-campaign-contes

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. So you guys are starting to say out loud ...

What some of us had been saying all along ...

Romney For President campaign was not a campaign to win a Presidency; it was a money-making venture, from the start.

[LiberalFighter]

2. He was doing money laundering through his business enterprises

[htuttle]

3. The Romney campaign seems to have been plagued by a lot of really ham-handed graft

I'd already come to that conclusion after reading the IT post-mortems in Ars Technica, and this just reinforces it. I'll bet that the Romney campaign's army of consultants made out really huge on it. Mitt seems to have been determined to at least not lose any money on it.

The campaign seems to have been a model of all it espouses: cronyism, Chicago-school-profit-over-everything mentality, and selfish greed. They just couldn't stop ripping everyone off long enough to run the campaign...

[tanyev]

4. Guess we'd all be doing that if he had won.

Whew.

[Cha]

5. Hmmm.. So, no problem with the expenses they had to pay to travel with PBO's campaign?

We are not quibbling over charter flights or hotel bills. We are focused on what appear to be exorbitant charges for food, filing centers/holds and ground transportation.

Some examples: $745 per person charged for a vice presidential debate viewing party on Oct. 11; $812 charged for a meal and a hold on Oct. 18; $461 for a meal and hold the next day; $345 for food and hold Oct. 30.

[HuskyOffset]

6. My favorite part of the letter...

...is this bit, where they clearly and easily catch the Rmoney campaign attempting to make press transportation a profit center, and get tripped up by their own greed:

We have similar concerns about ground transportation costs, which at times exceeded $1,000 a day and were far higher per capita than what the campaign charged during the primaries--despite the larger numbers of reporters, photographers and television crews travelling and dividing the costs. One news organization contacted two of the bus agencies used by the campaign; it was clear from their reporting that the costs you charged us far outdistanced what you paid for the transportation.

It's just so petty and stupid. One gets the idea that they took every expense they charged to the reporters and added, say, 50%. Just petty bush-league greedy stick-it-to-everyone-else bullshit. Standard operating proceedure for Rmoney.

[UCmeNdc]

7. Corruption!

A Romney presidency = Corruption

Just like Bushco in Iraq. Suitcases of cash just disappeared and no one asked where did the money go.

[Tutonic]

8. If the Romney's had dipped them head first in a pile of dog shit it would have been

too kind. You leave with the one that brung your ass to the dance.