A Stitch in Haste

...Mr. Edwards raised a bigger proportion of his campaign war chest in $2,000 donations than any of his Democratic rivals.The list of donors who maxed out included not only the expected plaintiff’s attorneys and their spouses, but also a roster of low-paid paralegals, receptionists, and other support staffers of law firms along with their spouses — even though (as an investigation for the Hill revealed) some of the staffers had recently suffered bankruptcies and other personal financial reverses and some were not recorded as having voted in years.

“In many instances, all the checks from a given firm arrived on the same day — from partners, attorneys, and other support staff,” reported The Hill. The law-firm employees duly denied that their employers had signaled any willingness to reimburse the donations — that would constitute a violation of federal law, after all. But pursuing the money trail was not easy, since Mr. Edwards, alone among major candidates, refused to disclose the identities of the big financiers who bundled checks for him...