I need a little clarification. So, the Total Spent is the amount of money raised that went “out” for whatever reason or expense, and Independent Expenditures & Direct Contributions is the amount that actually went to a candidate’s campaign? Am I understanding correctly?
That’s the way I read it. If you further read the entire accompanying narrative with the article at the leak, you will see that a common trick by some of them is to expense-out money to vendors for all sorts of things. It also says there are MANY of these PACs whose ‘vendors’ are employees, workers, relatives or other persons not wholly identified. What’s worse FEC regs don’t require them to go beyond the first vendor expenditure. Thus, that expenditure gets credited as an expense. This study sought to find out the truth - and the truth is very ugly my FRiend.