* Remember this story from early February of 2014?…

A new spot that’s hitting TV and radio this week attacks three out of the four gubernatorial primary candidates, sparing only Winnetka venture capitalist Bruce Rauner.

A source with knowledge of the buy said the group — Mid-America Fund — spent roughly $180,000 on broadcast, cable, and radio for this week.

And they kept spending.

One of Mid-America Fund’s 2014 contributors was the Republican Governor’s Association, which claims to have recruited Rauner into the Illinois race.

* Here’s the 2014 ad…

* Script…

More pay for them, higher taxes for you. That’s what career politicians do. Career politicians like Bill Brady, Dan Rutherford and Kirk Dillard. Together, they’ve spent over 60 years in Springfield. They voted to increase their own pay and supported millions in pork barrel spending. And to pay for it all, they stuck Illinois families with higher taxes. Call career politicians Brady, Rutherford and Dillard. Tell them we can’t afford high taxes and wasteful spending.

* Well, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a complaint with the IRS about Mid-America Fund and nine other “dark money” groups. From its summary…

[Mid-America Fund] acknowledged on its 2014 tax return that it spent $874,920 on political activity that year. MAF also spent hundreds of thousands of additional dollars on television and radio advertisements attacking three candidates for the Illinois Republican gubernatorial nomination weeks before the primary election. Those ads also were political, but MAF failed to report the spending as political activity. It is not clear exactly how much MAF spent on them, but estimates range from $244,600 to $705,000, which means political expenditures accounted for between 56% and 79% of MAF’s overall spending in 2014. As a result, politics appears to have been MAF’s primary activity. In addition, by failing to report its spending on the Illinois primary election as political activity, it appears MAF and its president, Dexter Vaughn, made false representations to the IRS. […]

It is unclear exactly how much MAF spent on the campaign, but the organization asserted on its tax return that it spent $705,000 for “production and media” to the company that purchased the broadcast television air time for the Illinois ads.

These groups can’t “primarily” be involved in campaign work, so if they spend more than half of their money on politics they can lose their not-for-profit status. Also, allegedly deceiving the IRS is kinda frowned upon. Mid-America Fund was dissolved in 2016, according to CREW.

* If you read the complaint, CREW acknowledges that these ads might be seen as non-political, but dismisses that contention by pointing to an IRS revenue ruling which takes into consideration a number of factors, including whether candidates are identified, whether the message approves or disapproves of the candidate, the proximity to the election, whether it makes reference to voting or an election, whether the issue distinguishes the candidates, whether it’s an ongoing series of communications, etc. It concludes…

(T)he ads were not issue ads, but were intended to effect the election.

Including the Illinois ads push Mid-America Fund’s campaign percentage to at least 56 percent of its 2014 total, up to as much as 79 percent, according to CREW.

* This was an Ohio group, by the way. Another Ohio group, Jobs and Progress Fund, was also hit with a CREW complaint…

JPF first made a name for itself in politics in early 2013 when it ran ads and sent mailers critical of then-Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL), who was believed to be considering a run for Illinois governor

* Also, just so you know, CREW has been slammed for focusing their attacks and complaints on Republican interests.