The Federal Election Commission's dismissal Tuesday of GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's extravagant wardrobe purchases still leaves one burning question unanswered: what happened to all those fancy duds?
The FEC's ruling lets Palin and the Republican National Committee off the hook for the $150,000-plus shopping spree to outfit the Alaska governor during the 2008 campaign. The commission ruled that the RNC's purchase of clothes and accessories for Palin and her family members at Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and other upscale retailers did not violate campaign finance law.
But that still doesn't clear up what happened to the designer clothes Palin sported on the campaign trail before reverting back to her old Wasilla ways. The RNC certainly has never fully explained the situation.
RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho tells us the clothes were donated to charity, as the committee had promised in the aftermath of the wardrobe debacle. But she declined to comment on which charities, and whether all of the clothes, or just some of them, were donated.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed the wardrobe complaint with the FEC, says, "Despite the fact that Governor Palin and the RNC claimed the clothing would be donated to charity, it is not clear this ever happened, and in any event, according to the FEC, the law does not require it."
A former Republican Party aide infamously blogged after the election that Palin's clothes "remain stuffed in trash bags at RNC headquarters." But the RNC disputed her account.
Just imagine how much those political collector's items would go for on eBay.