A cornerstone of the modern campaign finance system is disclosure.  Everyone agrees on disclosure, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats.  Old industrial political machines used to simply pay cash for votes, and this kind of corruption weakened democracy and allowed evil government activities to flourish.  Joe knows this, he was the Attorney General of Connecticut.  So the low simmering scandal - Joe Lieberman's failure to disclose $387,000 funneled through the petty cash account in campaign spending during the primary - is odd.  That's almost a tenth of what he spent in the primary, and he's been hanging his hat onto the fact that the petty cash journal can be kept private.

Until today, it looked like he was going to keep the matter seedy but quiet.  Thanks to some good reporting, though, it looks like Lieberman's $387,000 slush fund is both illegal and that he's been lying about where the money went.  Mary E. O'Leary in the New Haven Register has the story.  What happened on the Lieberman campaign is both illegal and weirdly incompetent.  

Political committees may make expenditures of not more than $100 to any person or for a transaction out of the petty cash fund and are required to keep a written journal documenting the payments.

The campaign has said it is under no legal obligation to release the journal and has no plans to do so. Lieberman also said their attorney has assured him that they have done nothing illegal.

"To me, this is just a political trick," Lieberman said of the complaint filed by the Lamont campaign.

But interviews with some of the people who were brought in to help get out the vote for the campaign in the two weeks before the hotly contested Aug. 8 primary described situations that appear to be at odds with some campaign finance requirements.

At least one man who was hired as a consultant, Tomas Reyes of Oxford, said he has yet to be asked by the campaign to turn over material for the journal, which would justify expenditures of $8,250.

The FEC requires the treasurer of the political committee to keep a written journal of all disbursements out of petty cash, including names, addresses, dates and purposes.

The campaign failed to make campaign manager Sherry Brown available for an interview on the campaign report and the status of the journal. Treasurer Lynn Fusco also failed to return phone calls seeking comment.

Also, Reyes and another man, Daryl Brooks of New Haven, who ran a consultant service, said they each got one check from the campaign for their services, but they are listed in the third quarter campaign finance report as getting two checks, for a total of twice what the men said they received.

The report lists Reyes as getting two checks for $8,250, one on Aug. 4 and one on Aug. 15. Brooks received $12,200 on Aug. 11 and another check for the same amount on Aug. 15, according to the Lieberman report. Both men said this was inaccurate.

Several young men, who were paid $60 a day out of petty cash to canvass in Bridgeport, said they were paid in cash for aggregate earnings over $200.

Rob Dhanda, 18, or Stratford, said he earned $480 in cash over several weeks, while Walter Ruilova, 18, also of Stratford, said his total was an estimated $360 in cash. Ruilova estimated there were about 30 teenagers working out of the Bridgeport office, each earning $60 a day in cash, over a few weeks.

Michelle Ryan, a spokeswoman for the FEC, would not comment on specifics of the Lamont complaint, but said "in terms of itemization, it is required once the aggregate total to a recipient is in excess of $200."

This isn't just unethical.  It's illegal.  And what's Joe's response?

Lieberman answered an inquiry about releasing the journal, by pointing to his history of compliance with campaign rules.

"I have an unblemished record of compliance with election laws. I always tell my staff at the beginning, whatever you do, just totally follow the law. I've never received anything approaching even a fine," the senator said in a recent interview.

Until the end, the last honest man in politics breaks the law, lies about it, and piously calls out his own scandal as the result of his opponent's dirty tricks.

Amazing.