"Documents Taken from Meth House Implicate Tea Party Dark Money Group in MT, CO" [View all]

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Documents Taken from Meth House Implicate Tea Party Dark Money Group in MT, CO

by Kim Barker at the Contributor

http://thecontributor.com/dark-money-operative-sees-hope-meth-house-documents-go-smoke

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In a sharply worded ruling, a federal judge in Montana said Tuesday that documents found inside a Colorado meth house pointing to possible election law violations will not be returned to the couple claiming the papers were stolen from one of their cars.

Instead, the thousands of pages will remain where they are - with a federal grand jury in Montana, investigating the dark money group American Tradition Partnership, once known as Western Tradition Partnership, or WTP.

The documents, detailed last fall in a Frontline documentary and in ProPublica coverage, point to possible illegal coordination between candidates and WTP, which since 2008 has worked to replace moderate Republicans with more conservative candidates in both Montana and Colorado. The documents, including a folder labeled “Montana $ Bomb,” provided the first real glimpse inside a dark money group. Such so-called social welfare nonprofits, which have poured more than $350 million into federal election ads in recent years, don’t have to disclose their donors.

Conservative political consultant Christian LeFer, a former WTP official, and his wife, Allison LeFer, who helped run the couple’s printing shop, sued Montana’s former Commissioner of Political Practices Jim Murry and the state of Montana to recover the documents.


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