“I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities,” President Barack Obama said during his 2010 State of the Union Address.

The above is taken from a piece in today’s Washington Free Beacon, picking up on the explosive new report  from the Government Accountability Institute alleging that the Obama campaign has been actively soliciting and accepting online donations from foreign nationals via social networking. According to the Beacon report, which quotes CCP President David Keating, the administration has repeatedly accused the Chamber of Commerce and Republican super PACs of being front groups for foreign companies while quietly spending millions to avert standard credit card reporting methods.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC)forbids donations from foreign nationals and the use of online donations is tremendously interesting given the increased use of technology to exchange and process transactions such as these, and the recent discussion of anonymous donations via text message.  Keating notes the discrepancy in rationale should this report prove that the administration and campaign were actively accepting illegal donations from foreign nationals.

“Given President Obama’s rhetoric about foreign influence in our elections, you’d think they’d bend over backward to ensure the very highest standards for his own campaign,” David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, told the Washington Free Beacon. “There are simple things they could do to make people a lot more confident, but it appears they haven’t done that.”

CCP will keep an eye on this story and continue to report developments as they occur.