Fidelis Foundation

The fallout from her Hardball appearance may have grabbed all the headlines, but that’s hardly the only crisis that Michele Bachmann has been dealing with this month. There is also the matter of her ties to Frank Vennes Jr., the ex-con and Bachmann campaign contributor on whose behalf she wrote a letter requesting a presidential pardon.

Bachmann later withdrew that request — and gave to charity some campaign funds she had received from Vennes. But as it turns out, it appears that Bachmann donated the money to Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based evangelical recovery program on whose board of directors Vennes served as recently as February 2008.