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    Paul Blumenthal

    Paul Blumenthal

    Reporter, HuffPost

  • Amy Klobuchar Wants To Know If There Was A 'Third Cover-Up' Of Trump’s Ukraine Call

    The Justice Department is supposed to tell the Federal Election Commission about any campaign finance legal matters it reviews. Did it?

  • Elizabeth Warren Wants To Tax Corporate Lobbying

    The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate has a new plan for a progressive tax on lobbyists in Washington.

  • Richard Nixon Had 'Secret Tapes.' Donald Trump Has Classified Transcripts.

    The president’s hidden calls with foreign leaders are his version of the secret tapes.

  • Why We Don’t Need To Debate ‘High Crimes And Misdemeanors’ For A Trump Impeachment

    Trump’s interactions with Ukraine’s president clearly fit the definition of bribery.

  • 9 Unanswered Questions In The Whistleblower Complaint

    These are the questions for Congress to pursue in its impeachment inquiry.

  • Trump Pressured Ukraine To Probe Biden While Discussing Military Aid

    "Do us a favor, though," the president said, according to a call summary released by the White House.

  • Nancy Pelosi Announces Formal Impeachment Inquiry Into President Donald Trump

    The latest news about the president's interaction with a foreign government was the final straw.

  • Donald Trump Is Asking A Foreign Country To Help Him Win. Again.

    The president sought Russian aid in the 2016 election — and got away with it. Now he’s asking Ukraine to do the same thing.

  • How Donald Sterling Tried To Blot Out His History Of Racism By Giving To Charity

    The Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP accepted at least $45,000 in grants from charitable foundations closely associated with Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in recent years. The majority of those contributions were made shortly before the chapter in 2009 presented a lifetime achievement award to Sterling, who is now under fire for racist remarks he allegedly made in an audio recording. According to tax records accessed at CitizenAudit.org, the Los Angeles Clippers Foundation donated $20,000 to the Los Angeles NAACP in 2008 and again in 2009, and the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation gave $5,000 in 2010.

  • Who's Behind The Anti-Romney Documentary?

    South Carolina has a reputation as the most vicious contest in the presidential primary calendar. It's where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was attacked for having a black baby, it's where then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former President Bill Clinton were labeled racists, and it is now where Mitt Romney faces the harshest attack of his campaign to become the Republican standard bearer. "When Mitt Romney Came to Town," a 28-minute documentary purchased by a cash-flush super PAC supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, highlights a series of business deals made by Bain Capital, the private equity firm formerly led by Romney, that cost thousands of Americans their jobs.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - The $200 Million Man

    Committee: Santa Rita Super PAC Candidate supported: Ron Paul Spot: "Bailout" -- The out-of-nowhere pro-Ron Paul super PAC drops seven ads to air in South Carolina. This one focuses on the bank bailout and includes a clip of Romney saying, "I don't call it a bailout. I call it a rescue plan."

  • New Hampshire Cost Per Vote: Losing Is Very Expensive

    Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire primary, but not before spending nearly $1 million on television advertising in the state's biggest media market. Candidates, and their super-PAC sidekicks, spent $3.6 million on advertising in the Boston, Mass. media market, the biggest market in New Hampshire.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - The Anti-Bain Documentary

    The Newt Gingrich super PAC documentary assailing Mitt Romney's record heading Bain Capital hit the web today. At 28-minutes long and styled like a Frontline expose the documentary is a godsend to Democrats. The movie, the content of which has been echoed by both Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry, runs down Bain Capital's takeovers of Unimac, K-B Toys, DDI, and American Pad And Paper.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - Republicans Want Corporate Contributions

    Jon Huntsman -- really got any support from a super PAC. Huntsman's super PAC, funded by his billionaire daddy, is one of numerous examples of the ludicrously defined "independence" that super PACs operate under. HuffPost's Jason Linkins gives the media a lesson in how to deal with super PACs before the January 24 primary in South Carolina, which will undoubtedly be the full scale super PAC World War to Iowa's Poland and New Hampshire's Norway: "In an ironic twist, the rule that ostensibly disallows coordination probably does more to prevent accountability than it does to promote it.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - Romney, Paul, Huntsman On Air In NH

    HuffPost] Nuclear Newt: Newt Gingrich's campaign releases two videos and two new attack web sites pillorying Romney for raising taxes as governor of Massachusetts and for his double-talk on having seen his super PAC's ads in Iowa. Meanwhile, the super PAC backing Gingrich received $5 million from Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and close buddy of Benjamin Netanyahu, to spend on purchasing and airing a 27-minute documentary savaging Romney's time leading the private equity firm Bain Capital. The super PAC is planning a $3.4 million ad buy in South Carolina featuring footage from the documentary.

  • Romney vs. Paul On Air In New Hampshire

    Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, with a year-long, double-digit lead in the polls, has gone in for the kill in New Hampshire with his largest ad buy of the campaign. In an effort to swamp his competitors as they try to catch up to Romney after his razor-thin win in the Iowa caucuses, his campaign has dropped $454,170 in recent days on ad buys in the expensive Boston-area media market -- more than any of his competitors in the month of January. Romney is coming on strong after investing little in television ads in 2011.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - The $11 Billion Election

    Politico] The super PAC backing Rick Santorum in the GOP primary is dropping $190,000 on ads in South Carolina. The group's ads will air in the Greenville, Charleston and Columbia markets. ABC] Santorum is skipping New Hampshire TV and going up with a big buy in South Carolina.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - GOP Starts To Sour On Super PACs

    Newt Gingrich calls Romney's economic plan "timid" in an ad set to run in New Hampshire. I assume this is all a warm-up to the coming apocalypse in South Carolina. HuffPost] Newt, however, is suffering from a bit of buyers remorse over his previous support for super PACs.

  • When Rick Santorum Embraced Lobbyists

    Behind the sweater vests, the faith and family, and the self-definition as a congressional reformer lies another Rick Santorum. This Rick Santorum favors big business, curries favor from lobbyists, and helped to bind the Washington influence industry to the Republican Party while serving in Congress. Beginning in 2001, after Republicans seized control of Congress and the White House, then-Sen. Santorum (R-Pa.) began hosting Tuesday morning meetings with a select group of lobbyists.

  • HUFFPOST FUNDRACE - Money Goes To SC, FL

    That comes after his super PAC -- Restore Our Future -- laid the groundwork by spending $622,159 on negative ads and mailers opposing Newt Gingrich in Florida and an additional $97,209 on negative ads that attack both Gingrich and Rick Perry in South Carolina. There's no doubt that the multi-million dollar super PAC will spend millions more to pave the road for Romney to walk on. A super PAC backing Newt Gingrich signaled today that it may be ready to hit back against Romney by posting a web video crafted by Sen. John McCain in his 2008 run for the GOP presidential nod against Mitt Romney.