After multiple reports of campaign finance irregularities and complaints filed by the Michigan Democratic Party, Terri Lynn Land finally got around to filing amended financial disclosure forms today.
However, even after doing so, the source of the nearly $3 million she has given to her own campaign remains a mystery:
U.S. Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land filed a correction to her federal financial discosure this week, revealing a previously undisclosed joint checking account she controls with her husband which her campaign says is the source of nearly $3-million she has contributed to her own race.But the filing still leaves unanswered questions about the source of the funds. Despite the amendment filed to Land’s financial disclosure, the Chemical Bank account showed no more than $100,000 in it. Land’s report had showed she and her husband, Dan Hibma, had assets worth as much as $35 million between them — but only about $1.5 million of that was under her control. […]
Land’s legal counsel, Charlie Spies, said he is confident the contributions are appropriate and proper.
“(Federal Election Commission) precedent, Michigan law, and common sense are clear that married couples may share income, put their money into joint accounts, and spend their resources from joint accounts as they choose,” he said. “We have analyzed Terri’s contributions to the campaign and believe there is FEC precedent for her being able to use resources from her joint account for the campaign.”
What’s far less clear, however, is why so much of Land and Hibma’s wealth is controlled solely by him — she even filed separate tax returns the last two years — and she has distanced herself, on those returns and her financial disclosures, from Land & Co., the west Michigan real estate and development company her family founded, as well as substantial other holdings.
Here’s what I don’t get: Why the hell won’t Land just admit that she’s filthy rich? Why the subterfuge? There has to be some reason why she separated herself from her husband’s vast wealth. Is it because she wants voters to think she’s just common folk like them? That she’s just a simple businesswoman with very little money who just happens to be married to a multi-millionaire?
I don’t know which is more absurd – that she thought voters would believe that she’s not a multi-millionaire if she filed her taxes separately from her husband, that she believes we’ll buy her story that overlooking a bank account with millions of dollars in it that she was tapping on a regular basis was some sort of “clerical error”, or that the dozens of times she claimed on campaign donation paperwork that she actually WAS an employee of Land & Co. (which she now says she never was) was a “mistake”.
Her whole convoluted explanation not only doesn’t pass the smell test, it reeks of deceit, cheating, and an intentional effort to mislead election officials and skirt campaign finance laws.
Land’s campaign is a complete trainwreck. No wonder Sabato’s Crystal Ball has moved the U.S. Senate race from “Lean Democrat” to “Likely Democrat”.
