Here's the big kahuna (something I just found)...
The Commission actually gave Obama For America (OFA) an 'out' with the following:
"Subsequent to the exit conference, OFA provided printouts of contributions that it believed had been reported on its 48-hour notice submissions. There were numerous contributions on the printouts that were not found on the public record. The difference The 48-hour report period was from October 16 through November 1,2008. between the sum of the printout totals and the total for all 48-hour notices appearing on the pubUc record was approximately $1,020,000. However, Commission records regarding these submissions indicate that the Commission actually placed all the data transmitted by OFA on the public record. The Audit staff informed OFA of this and inquired whether an inadvertent filing problem may have occurred with OFA's dataprocessing vendor. The Audit staff has received no response to this inquiry."
In BOLD being the key phrase, the 'out'. They never responded and paid the fine. I can't believe I never read that reported anywhere prior.
Not only that, they opted out of a hearing. Furthermore, a majority of the 'unreported' contributions came from a transfer - a single transfer on October 24, 2008, in fact - from the joint fundraising effort between OFA and the DNC: The so-called Obama Victory Fund. Isn't that interesting.
Politico falsely-reported the problem this way in 2012:
"The campaign did report the contributions, but not within the 48-hour time frame, according to the audit."
That's a lie. The audit text is clear (quoted above). The fine was for failure to report the donors' contributions.
Here's more:
"Subsequent to the exit conference, OFA provided printouts of contributions that it believed had been reported on its 48-hour notice submissions. There were numerous contributions on the printouts that were not found on the public record."
Note omission of data from their files in the data transmitted prior. Not a single block of data (i.e. a file itself) but missing data within the dataset. The Commission gives them an out to blame the 3rd party vendor; they don't take it. Why? Personally, the questions are compelling enough to reopen the investigation (in my book).
"Pay the fine and make it go away" is my interpretation. Makes a civil matter STAY a civil matter. Doesn't it? The Commission all but whitewashed the entire incident by saying (for all intents & purposes), "Well, it looks like it could've been a dataprocessing vendor problem; let us know (wink-wink)." But they didn't go there! All efforts on AVOIDING any further scrutiny which might make it criminal (intent) and compel a DOJ investigation. Right? Sorta sounds like they were influencing the 2012 election with 'hush money'; sound familiar? Just without the stripper and allegations of Just sayin.
If Obama's 'faux pas' was indeed unintentional and therefore not criminal, why didn't they cop to an inadvertent filing problem???
I, too, am sick of the media trying to paint this as black & white (no pun intended; offense with intent) between 0bama and Trump. Clearly shutting down the investigation has had benefits to 0bama, both in the 2012 election and, obviously, today.
Final Audit Report of the Commission on Obama for America (January 16, 2007 - December 31, 2008)
The law should require records of purchases for ads by every candidate be kept and turned in to a watchdog group to be verified. It’s how much was spent. Not how much was reported as having been raised.