Mother Jones
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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has quietly returned campaign contributions from an ex-con who lured investors for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in US history—and on whose behalf the tea party lawmaker sought a presidential pardon. According to campaign finance reports, last quarter Bachmann’s campaign committee paid $14,000 to a bankruptcy trustee for Frank Vennes, a former North Dakota pawnshop owner who was recently sentenced to 15 years in prison for aiding and abetting fraud.
Vennes has a long history of run-ins with the law. In 1986, federal agents investigating a drug ring in Bismarck came to suspect he was laundering drug money. Posing as Chicago businessmen, investigators began giving Vennes large sums of cash to smuggle out of the country. In one case, according to court documents, Vennes hand-delivered $100,000 to Geneva, where his associates either lost or stole it.
The following year, Vennes was convicted of money laundering—along with cocaine distribution and illegal firearm sales—and sentenced to five years in Minnesota’s Sandstone penitentiary. He later sued the federal government for more than $10 million, claiming the federal agents had forced him to peddle drugs and guns to recoup the missing $100,000 and threatened to kill and “dismember” his children if he refused. (Vennes lost; the case was thrown out on appeal.)
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7 Years Later, Michele Bachmann Quietly Returns Campaign Cash From Notorious Ponzi Schemer
