I posted earlier this week about Cincinnati billionaire Carl Lindner and his deep pockets for the GOP. As you recall, Lindner was the CEO of Chiquita during the time they were supporting terrorist organizations in South America. In that post I directed the readers to Newsmeat to check out Carl’s past donations. I also noted that his name was spelled as Linder and Lindner. I wasn’t sure about the reason for this, and thought it may have just been a typo. Well thanks to a reader of IntoxiNation, we find out it may very well not be a typo, but rather an attempt to bypass the caps on donations. City Beat, a Cincinnati publication, has the details on their blog:

Lindner, his wife, sons and other family members are well known as big-money political campaign contributors, mostly to conservative Republican candidates and causes including President Bush. A review of documents filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), however, show that the family also gives money to candidates under the similar name of “Linder.”

The pattern of listing campaign contributions without the second “n” in the family’s name isn’t limited to one or two reports, and appears to be a pattern going back several years.

According to documents filed with the FEC, it’s not just one “Linder” error, and it’s not just Carl Jr.’s last name being misspelled repeatedly; the same error shows up with a variety of other Lindner family members, including his wife, Edyth, and his son, Carl III.

This sounds very viable and should merit an investigation. I am sure there are laws that are being broken here, but it also exposes a serious loophole in our campaign finance laws – a loophole that must be closed. Hopefully this story can gain some serious attention and these problems can be fixed.