Democrats Keep Hitting GOP on Secret Foreign Donations

Updated 4:12 p.m. Eastern Time

Democrats and their supporters appear convinced that tying Republican outside groups to shadowy foreign donors is a successful strategy for rallying their base in the midterm elections. The repeated attacks come despite the fact that Democrats do not have solid proof to back up the allegations.

At a Philadelphia fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee yesterday, President Obama said Republicans in Congress "are being helped along this year by special-interest groups that are spending unlimited amounts ... without ever disclosing who's behind all these attack ads. You don't know. It could be the oil industry. It could be the insurance industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations."

The same point appears in a new attack ad on Republican Mark Kirk, who is seeking President Obama's old Senate seat in Illinois. In the spot, which is above and comes from the liberal group MoveOn.org Political Action, an announcer says the right-leaning business group the Chamber of Commerce is spending $75 million to help Republicans like Kirk get elected. (The Chamber has also backed a handful of Democrats.)

Says an announcer: "And where has the Chamber been getting some of their money lately? From foreign corporations in countries like China, Russia and India, the same companies that threaten American jobs. It's time to connect the dots."

In an ad over the weekend, the DNC made the same argument. Here's the script:

"Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie -- they're Bush cronies. The US Chamber of Commerce -- they're shills for big business. And they're stealing our democracy. Spending Millions from secret donors to elect Republicans to do their bidding in Congress. It appears they're even taking secret foreign money to influence our elections. It's incredible, Republicans benefiting from secret foreign money. Tell the Bush Crowd and the Chamber of Commerce - stop stealing our democracy."

The claims all stem from a post at liberal blog Think Progress saying its investigation had revealed that the Chamber takes foreign money to finance political ads. The Chamber vehemently denied the claims, and the New York Times wrote that "there is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual."

Democrats have responded that the only way for the Chamber to clear up the matter is to make its donors public - something the group refuses to do. Corporations and individuals use groups like the Chamber in order to influence political races without the outside world knowing about their involvement.

While there are outside groups on both the right and left involved in such activity, right-leaning groups have reportedly spent eight times as much as their left-leaning counterparts.

The Democrats' rhetoric is aimed at generating voter enthusiasm for the midterm elections. The goal is to motivate a small percentage of people whose vote could be the difference in a close election.

"This strategy shows that the Democrats are focused on a very small part of the map and they're just trying to drive Democrats out with a very specific message so they can win enough races to keep control of Congress, not to win all the races," said CBS News political analyst John Dickerson. "To get Democrats to turn out, the president's bringing out one more boogeyman. He brought out John Boehner now he's bringing out Karl Rove and the Bush White House."

On CBS' "Face the Nation" yesterday, Bob Schieffer pressed White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod on whether he has proof for his claims about the influence of foreign money, which Axelrod called "a threat to our democracy."

Said Schieffer: "This part about foreign money, that appears to be peanuts. Mr. Axelrod, do you have any evidence that it's anything other than peanuts?"

Replied Axelrod: "Well, do you have any evidence that it's not, Bob? The fact is that the Chamber has asserted that, but they won't release any information about where their campaign money is coming from."

The president has previously complained that the Supreme Court decision easing restrictions on campaign spending, known as Citizens United, "reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities."

Some on the left don't think Democrats will get much traction with their attacks on the Chamber and anonymous outside group spending.

"Real talk: Demanding financial disclosures from the Chamber of Commerce will not help Dems win the election," Tweeted liberal commentator Ezra Klein.

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Brian Montopoli is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of his posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

[Recce1]

We do know that Clinton and Gore took illegal campaign donations from the Chinese and in return gave them access to sensitive missile and guidance technology that has come back to haunt us. Clinton also gave management of a large US port with significant naval facilities to the Chinese.

We also know that Mr. Obama received a great deal of money from overseas that was hidden by being bundled. The Democrats have consistently refused to disclose their funding sources even where it was pretty obvious there might have been violations of the law.

The case against the Republicans is based on money donated by the Chamber of Commerce which takes in fees from its overseas affiliations. Yet it's been shown their funds have been segregated. Furthermore, the law doesn't require the GOP to disclose those donations although maybe it should.

[MoodyDisco]

Read between the lines if you will and you will see that this is the first real implied threat of initiating class warfare from the Obama administration so far. They are threatening to either force the chamber to reveal it's donor lists or submit to being labeled as anti-American and untrustworthy. The problem the chamber has is most of their donors wish to remain anonymous for a reason...

Consider that freedom of speech means that you have the right to make some noise to spread your ideas, but the people also have the right to know who is shouting at them. The greatest fear that the right has is that the dupes in the rank-and-file and within the tea party will realize that the same small group of extremely wealthy people secretly control BOTH major parties and the judiciary absolutely, so their real venom needs to be directed at this level, which is ABOVE the federal government, if they are serious about real, positive changes.

[GunsInTheSky]

Both parties should take the stand against accepting corporate (domestic or foreign) donations. Just because wackos like Scalia say this is OK, doesn't mean you have take the money. Its "we the people", not "we the imaginary entities set up to avoid personal responsibility"

[halisdad]

I didn't know Dan Rather went back to work for CBS News? Running with stories that even the white house says are unsubstantiated is amazing.

[vielmann]

Unsubstantiated or not, without disclosure you only have their word. Is that suddenly good enough? I mean, we already know that foreign money is being put into the Chamber of Commerce. So how can we be sure it isn't helping buy influence in Washington?

[jschmidt27]

ANother disgrace by this Administration is not getting ballots to the soldiers in time in violation of the MOVE act. So Holder files a suit against Guam for show. THey don't want this fixed until after the election.

[landon1975]

Again, the funny thing here is that not one person on this site or any other has made even ONE post in an intelligent attempt to answer the question: "if there is nothing to hide, then why not disclose?" Not ONE! A whole bunch of party line difference jibber-jabber. Or derogatory remarks about Obama, Pelosi, etc.. You know what? I am neither GOP or DEM. And I think Republicans are corporate slaves with everything to hide. And Dems are trying too hard to turn us into a police state. Not one piece of actual "meat" when it comes to the issue at hand. Where IS the money coming from then? I don't care about the old and tired arguments that have been going on since '08. Here's my take: If GOP had nothing to hide, they would flaunt it in the Dems faces! But they most likely do, so they won't be doing that. More Bush Tactics!

Does anybody remember an old 80's Richard Pryor movie "Brewster's Millions"?? Vote "None Of The Above"!! I wish there WAS a politician that TRULY cared for his/her country. I would vote for a person like that in less than a second! Alas, there is not. Unfortunately, our government is broken and there doesn't seem to be a "fix" available.

[jschmidt27]

The GOP could flaunt innocence till they were blue in the face. But the MSM shills for the Dems would never let the public believe it. They have been cheerleaders from the Dems from the start of Obama running and they always will never report a Dem negative without a Republican negative. The MSM has never hidden their pro-left liberal agenda.

[abbe91]

schmidt,

Do you include Fox in the MSM with a pro-left agenda ? Or are they fair and balanced ?
The MSM should have dragged Cheney in the mud for having outed a CIA front and betrayed the country and they didn't. Pro-left ? My foot.

[wfw3536]

How sad the democrats do not have anything to run on but this non issue. No one complained when Obama spent 5 times as much in the last presidential election. Why aren't the democrats running on the health care bill they wasted over a year on, or on the failed stimulus, or the banking bill that did nothing about Fannie and Freddie, well the answer is because they know the majority of folks do not agree with these policies and will vote out many of the folks who voted for them.

[MoodyDisco]

As long as those donations came from verified American sources there is no problem. The issue at hand is that foreign nationals and corporations may be making indirect campaign contributions - which IS illegal. CoC insists that they they aren't, but then refuses to offer verification. So if a foreign factor want to place someone into office who will serve their interests, (and not ours) and is willing to subvert our political process to achieve this goal, you're okay with it?

[bytheway59]

facts have never gotten in the way of the opposition, the GOP's are masters of deceipt and deception

[jschmidt27]

You discount Pelosi and Obama as masters of the same? How about the backroom deals, Congressional and union bribes Pelosi and Reid used to get healthcare passed? How about Obama acting as a moderate during the campaign along with the MSM rallying for him and when he wins he pulls the country to the left? That's deceit! How about Holder, Obama;s Justice Dept, dropping a won case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation or dropping the case against the Cole bomber or dropping cases against illegals if they're not charged with crimes? That's deceitful! And how about suing Arizona for enforcing Federal rules against illegals when Obama will not enforce them? That is a violation of the oaths Obama and Holder took to enforce the law of the land. They should resign for violating their oaths of office. That's deceitful! The Democrats have mastered lying, deceit, deception and being un-American.

[OnTheRoad01]

Aren't the DEMs saying that the GOP is doing the same thing that the Clintons were caught doing a couple of elections back?

[jschmidt27]

Yes- Gore was linked to money collector for donations from the Chinese. Of course the Democrats thought that was ok. And of course Soros and his buddies supported MoveOn and the Dems. And the unions, SEIU and others get large amounts from overseas. But again that's ok. Of course the teachers union just got a big shot of taxpayer money with the Obama 25 billion bailout for teachers of which 1 to 1 1/2% went to union dues and back into Democrat campaign coffers. It was partly financed with food stamp fund money. Guess it is more important the teachers union can support Democrats than the poor to get food.

[tsigili]

If Obama is so popular overseas (which is a myth), why would the GOP be getting foreign donations????