Waldron also alleges that the campaign concealed payments to Iowa state campaign chairman Kent Sorenson, a state senator who abruptly left the Bachmann camp to join then-U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's insurgent campaign. Under Iowa Senate rules, Waldron maintains, Sorenson could not perform paid work for a presidential campaign.
FEC records show that the campaign paid Short more than $104,580 through his Colorado-based company, C&M Strategies, between July and November of 2011. At the same time, MichelePAC, the leadership organization that Short helped her start, was paying him an average of $5,000 a month.
Records show no payments from the campaign to Short or his company in the month leading up to the Jan. 3, 2012, Iowa caucuses, where Bachmann finished in sixth place.
Short, who had worked in Bachmann's congressional office and also on her 2012 congressional campaign, told campaign workers at the time that he was volunteering on the Bachmann presidential campaign. Others were asked to do the same as the campaign limped through the final days of the Iowa caucuses.
But the FEC records show that MichelePAC made two separate $20,000 payments to Short on Dec. 6 and Jan. 3, a time when he was supervising operations for the Iowa campaign as Bachmann's national political director, which is not typically a volunteer position.
While Short continued to get paid, others agreed to forgo checks during the Christmas season. Among them were Waldron and a half-dozen other workers who are still owed money from the campaign. "To me, that was unconscionable," Waldron said.
One of those involved in the payment dispute is Barbara Heki, who sued the campaign last year over the use of a database listing the names and e-mail addresses of thousands of Christian home-school families. Although the campaign eventually agreed to pay $2,000 for the list, the lawsuit continues, as does a separate criminal investigation