NBC News revealed Tuesday night that although GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has repeatedly denied benefiting from federal funding to her family's farm or her husband's clinic, the Bachmanns received $137,000 in Medicaid funds over the last five years to Marcus Bachmann's "Christian family clinic," along with $24,000 in federal funds to train clinic employees. That's on top of the subsidies that went to a family farm in which she's named as a partner, which received more than $250,000 in federal funds. Bachmann continues to deny benefiting from the farm, although she's claimed income from the family business on her congressional disclosure forms.
I'm not sure that Bachmann's insisting that she's right in calling John Quincy Adams a founder -- his father, John, was a founder; John Quincy was only 9 at the signing of the Declaration of Independence -- is going to hurt her with her devoted base. Politifact.com says Bachmann has “the worst record of making false statements of any of the leading contenders," yet her poll standing continues to rise. But allegations that she either lied or misrepresented her family's cut of federal funds from programs she's promising to slash could hurt her badly. Left or right, voters don't like liars or hypocrites. The gaffes about John Quincy Adams and John Wayne Gacy are funny but much less important than this reporting.
I talked about Bachmann's latest challenge on MSNBC with Rev. Al Sharpton, Chris Hayes and Michelle Goldberg:
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