Herman Cain vows to look into allegations of financial misconduct
White House hopeful Herman Cain said Monday he was "not aware" of allegations his campaign skirted federal laws restricting the way candidates can raise money, telling Fox News host Jenna Lee he "didn't even know about the report until you brought it up on the show" but that he would "look at the report" to assess its validity.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday reported that top aides for the Republican presidential candidate "ran a private Wisconsin-based corporation that helped the GOP presidential candidate get his fledgling campaign off the ground by originally footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas - something that might breach federal tax and campaign law."
The newspaper said the Cain campaign at one point owed $40,000 to Prosperity USA, the private firm run by Mark Block, now his chief-of-staff, and Linda Hansen, now his deputy chief-of-staff. Both formerly worked as Cain campaign operatives in Wisconsin, where the newspaper said the firm was based.
When asked Monday if he would be amending his S.E.C. filings or financial disclosures as a result of the allegations, Cain told Fox "I'm not aware of this report, so my staff does not have time to go through it. And so I'm not aware of it - they're not aware of it."
Cain added: "We are going to look at the report and see if there is any validity, so at this point I can't say that there would be a modification, because we don't know at this point whether or not it's true or not."
"So we'll have to wait until we look at it," said Cain, who is also facing accusations of sexual misconduct.
It is unknown at this point whether or not Cain's campaign ever paid back Prosperity USA, and according to the Journal Sentinel, that corporation is no longer functional.
