The Supreme Court cleared the roles of super PACs in legal cases that included its landmark Citizens United ruling, which greatly expanded the limits and sources of money in politics. But even justices who supported increased giving — which the court has equated with free speech — said that citizens deserve to know who was behind money given to politicians.

‘‘I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better,’’ Justice Antonin Scalia said in July. ‘‘That’s what the First Amendment is all about, so long as the people know where the speech is coming from.’’

Determining who is behind the money hasn’t always been easy to determine.

One company dissolved In summer 2011 shortly after giving $1 million to a super PAC supporting Romney. It turned out to have been formed by Ed Conard, a Romney supporter who once worked with the former Massachusetts governor at the private equity firm Bain Capital.

Months later, a $400,000 gift from a limited liability partnership was traced to a fund connected with Boston-based Hellman Jordan Management. The firm eventually acknowledged that a married couple who had raised money for Romney had received the $400,000 as part of an unspecified investment disbursement and instructed Hellman Jordan to give it the super PAC supporting Romney.

‘‘This is the huge issue,’’ said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who is well known in Congress for trying to expand campaign-finance disclosure laws. ‘‘Transparency leads to more accountability, and the voters have the right to know who is spending gobs of money to influence their vote.’’

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Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org