Report: Cain may have broken tax, election laws

Even though most media attention was on , his campaign realized Monday that he may face a problem much bigger than misconduct.

According to a report from the Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel, the new frontrunner in the Republican presidential race may have violated federal tax and campaign law.

Documents obtained by the paper show the Cain campaign owing $40,000 to Prosperity USA, a private Wisconsin-based corporation owned by Cain's chief of staff Mark Block and deputy chief of staff Linda Hansen. Cain's federal election filings, however, has no mention of the debt nor do the documents' figures match any payments made by his campaign.

Prosperity USA paid Cain for gifts and items such as iPads, chartered flights and trips to Iowa and Las Vegas. The Journal-Sentinel reported that the corporation appears to now be defunct.

An unnamed GOP strategist interviewed by the Journal-Sentinel said Cain will have violated tax code law if Prosperity USA gave his campaign money for those items. "I just don't see how they can justify this," she said. "It's a total mess."

On Monday morning, Cain was asked on Fox News about the story.

"I'm not aware of this report," he said. "My staff has not had time to go through it. I'm not aware, there not aware to it. We're going to look at the report to see if there's any validity. We will take a look at it."

(Photo credit: Gage Skidmore )