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Monday, Jun 25, 2012 12:03 PM UTC

GOP moneymen meet for Romney

Does a photo show illegal super PAC coordination; Dems divided over Obamacare; and other top Monday stories

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Topics: 2012 Elections, Mitt Romney,

GOP moneymen meet for RomneyRepublican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney waves as he arrives at the Utah Olympic Park for a private dinner during a donor's conference in Park City, Utah, Friday, June 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Credit: AP)

Big money meetings: Mitt Romney held a retreat in Utah for high-dollar donors this weekend that included a coterie of Republican heavyweights and potential vice-presidential nominees, but also big fundraisers and GOP moneymen. An anonymous Twitter user snapped a photo of what he or she claims is the Romney campaign illegally coordinating with a super PAC. The campaign denies the allegation, but it underscores how easy it would be to skirt federal anti-coordination laws.

At the same time a thousand miles away, the Koch brothers had their big conference of right-wing donors in California where high security and top secrecy kept reporters and the public away. BuzzFeed’s Eric Wolff snuck in and described the security procedures.

A law supreme: The Supreme Court will rule this week on the Affordable Care Act, but if the court strikes down the law or some of its key provisions, like the individual mandate, it seems Democrats and progressive healthcare advocates have no clear plan B in place. “[I]t now appears likely that Democrats and healthcare reformers will lack a unified message or an all-hands-on-deck strategy if the individual mandate falls,” TPM’s Brian Beutler reports.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post and the New York Times report there is division in the ranks of health reform advocates over the legal strategy the Obama administration pursued in defending the law. So far, the White House has largely refused to discuss the possibility of the court striking down Obamacare, but at a recent fundraiser, the president mentioned the possibility of circling back to healthcare in the second term.

Heads I win, tails you lose: Another new report about Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital shows how the company profited, even when the firms they invested in went bankrupt. From the New York Times: “The private equity firm, co-founded and run by Mitt Romney, held a majority stake in more than 40 United States-based companies from its inception in 1984 to early 1999, when Mr. Romney left Bain to lead the Salt Lake City Olympics. Of those companies, at least seven eventually filed for bankruptcy while Bain remained involved, or shortly afterward, according to a review by The New York Times. In some instances, hundreds of employees lost their jobs. In most of those cases, however, records and interviews suggest that Bain and its executives still found a way to make money.”

Eric Holder to be held in contempt of Congress this week: The chief Republican lawmaker driving the effort predicts. A Hill poll shows the effort seems to be a winning message, as most Americans think the White House improperly invoked executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents.

It’s not technically insider trading: The Washington Post reports: “One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found. … Almost one in every eight trades — 5,531 — intersected with legislation.”

Alex Seitz-Wald

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald. More Alex Seitz-Wald.

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