Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain accused a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC of accepting “foreign money” from Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, in an Internet interview Friday.
“Obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign,” Mr. McCain said.
The 2008 Republican presidential nominee is accusing Mr. Adelson of using profits from properties that he own’s in Macau to influence the general election. Mr. Adelson made a $10 million contribution to the Restore Our Future PAC on Wednesday, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Federal campaign laws prohibit foreign individuals from making campaign contribution.“That is a great deal of money. And, again, we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization that Teddy Roosevelt had: that we have to have a limit on the flow of money and that corporations are not people,” Mr. McCain said Friday.
The Arizona senator is one of Mr. Romney’s top supporters, but has been critical throughout his political career of large campaign contributions from wealthy individuals. After endorsing Mr. Romney prior to the New Hampshire Republican Primary Election back in January, he was critical of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for accepting money from Mr. Adelson. The casino magnate and his family contributed $21.5 million to a pro-Gingrich super PAC.
During the interview, a transcript of which was released by The NewsHour on Friday, Mr. McCain also commented on Mr. Romney’s 2011 comment where he told a crowd heckler during a speech “corporations are people, my friend.”
“I think that in that context he was talking about they are made up of people and that’s true in that context,” Mr. McCain said. “But to be corporations for purposes of involving campaigns, to be treated the same as people, I just don’t agree with that.”
Neither Mr. Romney or Mr. Adelson has responded to Senator McCain’s comments about “foreign money.”
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