WASHINGTON -- One of the loose ends a former presidential candidate has to tie up after quitting a race is paying down debt. Many campaigns take on a fair amount of debt over their lifetimes, and a candidate has to deal with paying vendors or staffers long after the campaign has ended (Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign, for example, was still $75,000 in debt last October, the last time she filed an FEC report).
After their 2012 runs ended, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann quickly started paying off their debt, the former writing his final check in March while the latter has brought a $1 million tab down about 90 percent since January.
But a group of former Bachmann staffers in Iowa say the campaign has yet to pay them the small salaries they're owed.
According to Salon, the group says Bachmann still owes them $5,000, but the campaign won't pay the bill unless the staffers sign a nondisclosure agreement relating to a lawsuit brought against the campaign.
[Former national field director Peter] Waldron confirmed the details and said the nondisclosure agreement stems from the campaign’s alleged misuse of an email list. A home-schooling group accused the Bachmann campaign of stealing the list, which was contained on a volunteer’s laptop, and then using it to fundraise for the campaign. The home-schooling group has sued the campaign and Waldron said there is also a criminal investigation pending, explaining that he spoke with police about the incident “several times.”
“They wanted us to have no further conversation [with police] without first notifying Michelle’s attorneys, and we just refused,” he told Salon. “We’ve been lied to at every turn.”
“This story is important. I’ve got five soldiers, as it were, five men who are willing to stand and not capitulate to this unnatural pressure that is coming from the Bachmann campaign. It’s just immoral what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to shut us up. You want to get paid? You gotta sign this agreement and not talk to either the police or lawyers,” he continued.
A Bachmann staffer told Salon the charges are "false and inaccurate." The debt is not reflected in Bachmann's FEC filing from December, when her presidential campaign was about $170,000 in debt and had about $53,000 on hand (though she can transfer funds from her congressional campaign, which has $2.1 million in the bank).
From the campaign's perspective, the only Iowa bill left to pay is $3,000 to a consulting firm. Almost all of its outstanding debt is owed to companies: In December, the only individual still owed cash was longtime Bachmann aide Andy Parrish.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.