Justin's Political Corner

The ex-wife of Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that Kirk may have improperly hidden campaign payments to an ex-girlfriend by paying her through a company doing campaign work, The Chicago Tribune reports.

“Mr. Kirk seems to have believed Ms. McCracken provided him with something valuable enough, that he acceded to, directed, or tacitly endorsed … campaign donations being surreptitiously transferred to his girlfriend,” Kimberly Vertolli, the ex-wife, wrote in her complaint, filed in November 2011.

Vertolli, who has been a Navy lieutenant and intelligence officer and a lawyer for the CIA„ herself received $40,000 from the campaign, also through a company, though the Tribune reports that “she said there was nothing improper about that.”

Kirk’s campaign, meanwhile, has called Vertolli’s accusations “groundless.”

Vertolli, 39, and Kirk, 52, divorced in 2009 after nearly eight years of marriage. Eric Elk, Kirk’s campaign manager, told the Tribune that the couple split amicably, but Vertolli now blames Kirk’s relationship with Dodie McCracken, 54, for the divorce.

H/T: Eric Lach at TPM