After conceding defeat, the Romney campaign cut off staffers’ credit card access with such lightning speed that some campaign aides found they had to pay their own cab fare home on election night. Well fast forward a mere three months to 2013 and we find the Romney Victory fund is being uncharacteristically generous with its final cash dispersals.  

Politico.com said Friday that a recent Federal Election commission report shows that Romney’s Victory Fund “quietly” made a charitable donation of almost $90,000 ($89,585.18) to the Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.  Other transfers mentioned quietly but perhaps no less “charitable” include a chunk of Victory fund cash handed over to Vermont’s chronically underfunded GOP and three other GOP state committees.

In all, Romney for President and Romney Victory cut checks totaling nearly $27 million in December, which is not usual for a presidential campaign winding down. That included transfers totaling $650,000 to the state parties in Idaho, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Vermont.

The two Romney committees finished the year with a little more than $4 million in the bank […]

During the campaign, Vermont’s chronically underfunded GOP and three other Republican state committees acted as the temporary drop box for Romney Victory cash. Vermont received the most Victory cash and at one point had almost $8 million on hand. As part of the deal, the VTGOP was paid a monthly $20,000 fee by the Romney campaign for the months the money was tucked away but inaccessible in its accounts.

The Romney Victory Fund was one of several entities that legally shifted large bundles of campaign funds around hither and yon in a  way shockingly characteristic of money laundering. The Wall Street Journal reported that investment companies were warning clients because donations to the Victory fund could trigger SEC violations.

It all ends well: despite the millions, Romney was defeated, the Red Cross got a little relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and the Vermont GOP gets a little something for its future disasters.