Did Ron Johnson Bribe Himself?

Hey, if John Fogerty can (allegedly) plagiarize himself, anything's possible, right?

I may have been wrong when I called the $10 million dollar bonus Johnson gave himself a "minor" deal the other day. In fact, it's looking more and more like a rather major deal or at least on the way to becoming one.

Talking Points Memo seems to have taken on the story and they have reputation for not letting go of stories like this. In the meantime, Johnson office is doing exactly the wrong thing here by going into a communications lockdown:

So far Johnson has not produced a written deferred compensation agreement that was signed and dated before he launched his campaign. Absent such an agreement, Johnson could face serious charges that he violated campaign-finance laws barring direct corporate funding of federal candidates, election law experts tell TPM.

[...]

Johnson spokeswoman Mary Vought did not return several inquiries from TPM Monday. 

And now with allegations that Johnson may have shuffled money around so as to avoid paying taxes, it's all adding up to a very uncomfortable situation. This is the kind of nagging story that can destroy Johnson's time in the Senate before it really has much of a chance to get started.

Anyway, If there isn't a "written deferred compensation agreement," Johnson would be wise to come out and say "Yeah, we did write an agreement down. It was a mistake on our part. Here's the money back." The longer trying to explain away the situation by calling it "complicated" goes on, the more likely Johnson's going to find himself in a Anthony Weiner situation (sans the sexlessness, of course) wherein the obfuscation becomes worse than the actual deed itself.