The Republican National Committee will pay a $96,000 Federal Election Commission (FEC) fine for failing to disclose $9,232,930 in newly incurred debts during a six month period leading up to the 2010 election.
The agreement was made public late Friday. Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele headed the committee at the time of the violations, and the RNC maintained that it took action when they learned about the violations.
“The Committee contends that upon the discovery of the reporting issues that gave rise to this matter – which constituted only a tiny fraction of the Committee’s overall activity for the 2009-2010 election cycle – the Committee took aggressive, proactive action to conduct a comprehensive internal review and file amended reports where necessary as expeditiously as possible,” according to the agreement between the RNC and the FEC. “The violations at issue occurred during a short period of time in 2010.”