Clark Fork Chronicle: Tester calls for truth and transparency from secretive organization
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Senator Jon Tester today called on a secretive organization responsible for misleading TV ads in Montana to reveal who they are and where their funding comes from.
The well-funded organization, called the “Committee for Truth in Politics,” is airing the TV ads across Montana, encouraging viewers to contact Tester about a bank bailout that doesn’t even exist.
“As you well know, this TV ad is flat out false,” Tester wrote in a letter to the only two people reported to be involved with the group. “Out-of-state, secretive organizations that spread fear and confusion have no place in a state like Montana.”
Tester added that Montana has a “proud tradition of transparency in government and truth in politics.”
“In line with that tradition, and in honor of the truth, I call on you to reveal exactly where your funding comes from,” Tester wrote.
The TV ad appears to be an effort to falsely label the Senate’s plans for Wall Street reform as a “big bank bailout” in order to mislead Montanans. Tester is the only Senate Democrat to have voted against the bailouts of Wall Street and of the U.S. auto industry.
“Our economy almost collapsed a year and a half ago because there were no referees on Wall Street,” Tester wrote. “Montana’s Main Street small business owners and families should never have to pay the price of greed on Wall Street.”
Tester said he wants to know why “a secretive organization would spend so much good money to keep referees off Wall Street.”
“Montanans shouldn’t believe an ad that bails out on the truth,” he wrote.
