Show me the money: $20,000 missing from Eyman PAC!

It is always a little easier to solicit contributions when you can show that others have already given. Thus it was good strategy for Tim Eyman to send a fundraising email on July 23, encouraging donations to his personal compensation PAC by citing a particularly generous supporter:

Yesterday, one of our supporters donated $20,000 to our compensation fund “Help Us Help Taxpayers.” Jack, Mike, and I are extremely grateful for this tremendous generosity. We know that not everyone can donate that much, but we hope that all of you will participate as much as you can.

Problem is, Eyman filed his monthly financial disclosure report with the Public Disclosure Commission yesterday, and there was no $20,000 donation listed. Indeed, for the month of July, “Help Taxpayers Help Tim” only raised a total of $7,325.

Far be it from me to question Tim’s honesty. Tim bluntly told his core group of supporters that on July 22 he received a $20,000 donation… so I’m going to have to assume that he actually received the money.

So where is it?

If he deposited it into the PAC bank account, it should have shown up on his PDC report. If it was merely a pledge, that too is required by law to be reported.

Or perhaps Tim skirted the public disclosure laws, and deposited a large, anonymous donation into a personal bank account?

I suppose it’s possible that there never was a $20,000 donation… that he intentionally misled contributors about the PAC’s finances in an effort to spur donations. But that wouldn’t just be a lie; an aggressive prosecutor might consider it yet another count of wire-fraud in what one could argue is a six-year pattern of racketeering and conspiracy to defraud contributors and evade the public disclosure laws.

So which is it Tim? Are you a liar or a crook? Or both?