By Calvin Freiburger
MADISON, Wisconsin, April 4, 2018 – The Federal Elections Commission fined Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin for failing to report $116,898 in contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic Senate candidate Russ Feingold.
According to FEC documents, the abortion affiliate’s political arm reported $133,305.04 in expenditures on its October 2016 quarterly report, but that sum included two payments of $58,449.04 apiece, dated August 31, 2016, but not submitted in any previous reports. One was a donation to Clinton, who lost to President Donald Trump, and the other a donation to Feingold, a former Wisconsin senator who unsuccessfully attempted to retake his old seat from Republican Ron Johnson in 2016.
The law requires individuals and organizations other than political committees to report all expenditures amounting to $10,000 or more within 48 hours. Planned Parenthood did not disclose those payments until two months after the fact. It told the commission that the omission was an honest error, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
“This error was due to a misunderstanding of the requirements by filing staff, who mistakenly believed 48-hour reports were not required unless expenditures were made within 20 days of the election,” Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin stated. “Staff has since been trained on all required reports and how to monitor aggregate amounts so that appropriate 48-hour reports will be made going forward, in addition to required 24-hour reports.”
According to the FEC’s settlement statement, Planned Parenthood has agreed to pay a fine of $5,850 by Friday, April 6, closing the matter.
Fox News noted that the national Planned Parenthood Action Fund spent more than $30 million in support of Democratic candidates in 2016. This year, it has vowed to spend $20 million — the largest amount it has ever spent on midterm elections — to elect pro-abortion candidates in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
As LifeSiteNews highlighted in October, the $38 million Planned Parenthood and its associates gave to candidates between the 2012 and 2016 election cycles was more than nine times the $4.1 million the National Rifle Association donated to current members of Congress since 1998, a sum to which the mainstream media have devoted significant attention in recent months.
Planned Parenthood also announced at the beginning of the month that it plans an aggressive push for more liberal abortion laws at the state level. It cited legislation repealing waiting periods for abortion, forcing nurse practitioners to provide abortion pills, and forcing college health centers to stock abortion pills as examples of the changes it seeks to bring about.
Editor’s note. This appeared at LifeSiteNews and is reposted with permission.