The FBI is interviewing witnesses to alleged illegal payments involving staffers for Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign, Kevin Diaz reported for the Star Tribune over the weekend. One of the key witnesses, Bachmann’s former chief of staff Andy Parrish, recently submitted a sworn statement to the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, leading to the appointment of a special investigator for an ethics complaint against Republican State Senator Kent Sorenson.

Follow me after the jump for more details.

From the Star Tribune article by Diaz:

St. Paul attorney John Gilmore, who represents former Bachmann chief of staff Andy Parrish, also confirmed that his client is among those being interviewed by the FBI as a witness. “Andy Parrish has been contacted by the FBI for purposes of an interview,” Gilmore said. “That has been set up for next week and Mr. Parrish will cooperate fully.”

[…]

One source familiar with the FBI inquiry said an agent from the bureau’s public integrity section expressed interest in campaign finance allegations contained in a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint brought by whistleblower Peter Waldron, a Florida pastor who worked on the Bachmann presidential campaign in Iowa.

The allegations in Waldron’s FEC complaint in January focus on Bachmann’s top lieutenants, rather than on Bachmann herself.

One allegation suggests secret payments to Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, a Milo Republican who served as Bachmann’s campaign chairman before the 2012 Iowa caucuses. Another is an allegation of improper payments from Bachmann’s independent political organization, MichelePAC, to longtime Bachmann aide Guy Short, then serving as the campaign’s national political director.

Bleeding Heartland posted the full text of Waldron’s FEC complaint here.

Waldron submitted a similar complaint to the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, which was ready to punt until Parrish submitted an affidavit corroborating some of Waldron’s claims.

In related news, Kevin Hall reported at The Iowa Republican on signals that Bachmann may settle the lawsuit former staffer Barb Heki filed last summer. Heki accused Sorenson of stealing a homeschooling group’s e-mail list from her personal computer. Her lawsuit also accused several senior Bachmann campaign staffers of defaming her by blaming her for the misuse of the e-mail list.