This FEC search returns PCCM information about different Barb(a)ra Streisands, for payments made in 2017 and 2018. The FEC search results should include this November 2, 2018 Barbra Streisand payment to Swalwell for Congress (Eric Swalwell). See a backup image of this payment here. As of February 16, 2021, the Barbara Streisand PCCM contribution search results do not include that November 2, 2018 payment to Swalwell. Going the other way, this search of PCCM that "Swalwell for Congress" received does not show that November 2, 2018 Streisand payment, as URL'd above. No logical reason can explain the disappearance of the November 2, 2018 Streisand / Swalwell payment from the FEC search results. This becomes a huge data quality and integrity issue, Americans who never paid PCCM have the right to the explanations, and federal law enforcement employees must investigate.
The FEC search page clearly shows a payment, received on May 28, 2020, from Barbara Streisand to Elizabeth Pannill Fletcher. See a backup image of this payment here. This payment has this mailing address:
Barbara Streisand
6838 Sumierz Dr
Malibu, CA 90265
According to careful research, this Malibu mailing address does not exist. The November 2, 2018 Streisand payment to Swalwell for Congress (mentioned above) has this mailing address:
Barbra Streisand
6838 Zumirez Dr
Malibu, CA 90265-4317
These payments have a potential connection because of their almost identical, but totally different, names and mailing addresses. Americans who never paid PCCM have the right to see the truth about all this, and federal law enforcement employees must investigate this issue.
This spreadsheet shows the "long form" FEC PCCM information for Barb(a)ra Streisand, from February 8, 1978 to December 31, 2020. The contributor ID column (column AC) has many questionable issues:
1. Only 100 out of the 922 known payments have contributor_id information - about 10%. The rest - 822 - have no contributor_id information
2. All PCCM payments need to have contributor_id information
3. The 100 Streisand payments with contributor_id information have ten different contributor_id values - they need to have the same contributor_id information
4. These long-form search results don't include the "missing" Nov. 2, 2018 Streisand payment to Swalwell for Congress, so we don't know the contributor_id for that payment (see more about this payment above)
5. The September 9, 2006 Barb(a)ra Streisand PCCM payments have no contributor_id data
6. The mysterious Barbara Streisand payment to Elizabeth Pannill Fletcher, and reported above, has a contributor_id
value; between July 6, 2016 and October 8, 2018, both Barbra Streisand and Barbara Streisand paid PCCM, with that contributor_id
7. Twenty-three different Barbara Streisand PCCM payments show four different contributor_id values, and no contributor_id values for almost 200 of these payments
Column AC has the contributor_id data. However, column L covers the "unused_contbr_id" data. This logically translates - PROBABLY - to mean "unused contributor ID." Hmmm. Commoner Americans could sure use similar "unused social security numbers" when they deal with the IRS. For extra credit, download the sheet. Sort by contribution_receipt_date (column AI) and then compare the contribution_receipt_amount (column AJ) and contribution_aggregate_ytd (column AK) columns.
Data about Thomas Steyer PCCM payments to "Nextgen Climate Action Committee" also raises questions. This spreadsheet shows relevant data sourced from the FEC website. We see that Thomas F. Steyer payments to "Nextgen Climate Action Committee" between July 24, 2013 and December 7, 2020 had no contributor_id data at all. These payments totalled more than $250 million. One of these payments amounted to $16 million. We might want to see how the money moves out of NextGen to its next destination, and then tie that money back to NextGen and Steyer. This spreadsheet shows some of that information. Ten of the payments shown have no contributor_id information in column AC. "NextGen Climate Action Committee" will not run for political office. This fact, combined with the unreliable contributor_id data surrounding Nextgen, means that a complete picture, based on solid ID data, of the PCCM money flows into and out of Nextgen becomes impossible to build. It becomes impossible because the data shows no reliable way to tie the contributor, or contributors, to the payments as Nextgen PCCM money moves through the political system. We must essentially guess names because of so many name possibilities. Then we have to manually clean whatever data we can find, based on inconsistent contributor names, missing and / or inconsistent contributor ID information, etc. That guesswork and cleaning will never have the reliability of clean, validated, genuine data.
Earlier investigations (here and here) show that Barb(a)ra Streisand paid PCCM from at least three apparently non-existent mailing addresses. At this time, the FEC website does not handle searches by mailing address. If it did, we could see if more PCCM ties to the questionable Streisand PCCM mailing addresses. Every mailing address in the FEC database(s) should and must get verified and validated. This obviously never happened. We also need to compare all FEC database non-existent PCCM mailing addresses with other government databases, including jury duty system databases. This would show use of fraudulent PCCM address information generally, and for jury duty specifically. Even one fraudulent mailing address would justify complete audits of each jury duty system with any relationship to that address, or any relationship to the name connected to that address. Theoretically, the FEC has data about every PCCM payment for many decades - unless, of course, some stakeholders never report some PCCM to the FEC. Barb(a)ra Streisand and Thomas Steyer prove that different name data, combined with random and / or non-existent contributor_id data, all tie to individual PCCM payers and / or PCCM payments. This means that the FEC itself has no way to know exactly how much PCCM money Streisand, Steyer, or anyone else has ever paid, and to whom or what. If the FEC supplied high-quality data, people would have seen the issues described above seconds after they happened. Americans should not need huge amounts of work to see the truth behind the FEC PCCM data.
This FEC long-form data became the data source for the spreadsheets URL'd above. The FEC provides a search tool to find information about almost a quarter of a billion PCCM payments. That search tool raises questions of its own. The FEC supplied this version of the search tool until roughly November 26, 2018. As described above, that search tool version showed the November 2, 2018 Barbra Streisand payment to "Swalwell for Congress." Sometime after November 26, 2018, the FEC changed its search tool to the new version. For some mysterious reason, that new search tool does not show that Nov. 2, 2018 Streisand payment to "Swalwell for Congress." This screenshot shows the issue.
The FEC makes bulk PCCM data available for download here. This FEC download page has data descriptions and / or header files for the first nine data download categories, and for the last two categories
- Electronically filed reports (.fec files)
- Paper filed reports (.fec files)
Government already knows how to trace money flows with ID numbers. It uses social security numbers as unique IDs for IRS / financial system databases, and everything else. Even when someone's name changes, the social security number stays the same. The IRS can externally trace taxpayer money flows, all around the world, with social security numbers. Government employees need to use the same approach with PCCM. If the IRS allowed questionable IRS paperwork home address information the way the FEC allows questionable PCCM mailing address information, Commoner Americans would definitely benefit. In a larger sense, however, Americans should not need to download tons of bulk FEC files, and then try to reverse-engineer the FEC database(s) that feed the FEC PCCM website. If we try, we'll proceed without a structure, without a road-map, and with little chance that we'll get it right. The FEC needs to release the finished PCCM database(s) they have, the raw data they used to build those database resources, and an explanation of just exactly how the FEC maps the raw data into the FEC PCCM database(s). Americans employ everyone at the FEC, we own their information, and that information does not involve national defense, international diplomacy / trade policy, financial policy, etc. - theoretically, at least.
These issues are scary. As of February 14, 2021, the FEC stated that it has information about 247,237,000 individual PCCM payments. Based on this reporting, it sure looks like the FEC does not protect the integrity of the campaign finance process.
