Herman Cain vows to look into allegations of financial misconduct

By: Lucy Madison
Topics: Campaign 2012

Herman Cain.

White House hopeful Herman Cain said Monday he was "not aware" of allegations his campaign skirted federal laws restricting the way candidates can raise money, telling Fox News host Jenna Lee he "didn't even know about the report until you brought it up on the show" but that he would "look at the report" to assess its validity.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday reported that top aides for the Republican presidential candidate "ran a private Wisconsin-based corporation that helped the GOP presidential candidate get his fledgling campaign off the ground by originally footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas - something that might breach federal tax and campaign law."

The newspaper said the Cain campaign at one point owed $40,000 to Prosperity USA, the private firm run by Mark Block, now his chief-of-staff, and Linda Hansen, now his deputy chief-of-staff. Both formerly worked as Cain campaign operatives in Wisconsin, where the newspaper said the firm was based.

When asked Monday if he would be amending his S.E.C. filings or financial disclosures as a result of the allegations, Cain told Fox "I'm not aware of this report, so my staff does not have time to go through it. And so I'm not aware of it - they're not aware of it."

Cain added: "We are going to look at the report and see if there is any validity, so at this point I can't say that there would be a modification, because we don't know at this point whether or not it's true or not."

"So we'll have to wait until we look at it," said Cain, who is also facing accusations of sexual misconduct.

It is unknown at this point whether or not Cain's campaign ever paid back Prosperity USA, and according to the Journal Sentinel, that corporation is no longer functional.

Lucy Madison
Lucy Madison is a political reporter for CBSNews.com.
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by rayward73446 November 10, 2011 12:52 AM EST: Herman Cain is a bought, and paid for, Koch Brothers canidate. Their hunger for power is well known and for many of us is disgusting.
The hot topic about Cain is the sexual harrassment charges. For that many women to have filed complaints against him for sexual harrassment shows me he is a liar and a sexual preditor. His repeated denials, and convoluted explanaitions have left me convinced that he probably did everthing that the women stated that he did. He was smart in that he waited until he and a woman was alone to make his move. Like most all politicians you can always tell when they are lying because their lips are moving.
Perry is a dunce and can't even remember his lines during a debate. Cain is a puppet for the Koch Brothers who can't keep his hands off of women. Why can't the Republican Party find a decent candidate?; Reply to this comment

by Kenny777_y October 31, 2011 1:38 PM EDT

no breaking news here||| bias media just doing what it does best. telling the american voters who will be and who will not be running in november,2012. iam surprised that the media has waited this long to start cleaning out the herd.

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by Bisk1 October 31, 2011 4:09 PM EDT: Kenny, let me guess - the liberal media is now racist ?? Dumb Dumb Repugs !!

by lovethiscountry October 31, 2011 1:12 PM EDT

Hmmm is turnaround fair play and we can say the media is being Racist!

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by Bisk1 October 31, 2011 4:09 PM EDT: Especially Faux News, since they're carrying this news story too. Dumb Dumb Repugs !!


by KaphenDePriest October 31, 2011 1:10 PM EDT: If I were Cain, I wouldn't even bother showing up for the next debate. At this point he is just wasting everyone's time with his mission to sell more book's.

He needs to change the title of his book to: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Whitehouse", because his campaign is now a joke.; Reply to this comment