No one’s saying yet how much more, but we’ll know soon.

CBS News reporter John Bentley reports that Thompson has raised over $8 million in the third quarter, according to Deputy Communications Director Karen Hanretty. The official numbers will be released soon, but Hanretty declined to speculate how much more than $8 million the campaign has raised.

While that number is expected to be lower than his GOP rivals, it eclipses the $5 million number Thompson’s camp had been floating over the past few days.

Thompson will also report raising $3.5 million in June before the third quarter began, CBS News reports.

Mitt reportedly earned $10 million and kicked in another $6-7 million of his own dough. I’m ignorant about all things fundraising but since Fred didn’t declare until September, isn’t the money he earned this quarter before the date of the announcement unusable for campaign purposes? That was the subject of the FEC complaint filed against him by one of the nutroots in August:

The blogger, Lane Hudson, submitted his complaint to the Federal Election Commission on Monday saying Thompson has raised far more money than he needs to explore whether to run for president…

The law prohibits anyone who is “testing the waters” from hoarding the money for use during his actual campaign. Potential candidates also cannot refer to themselves as candidates, can’t run ads that publicize their intention to campaign or take steps to qualify for the ballot in a primary or caucus state.

Does that mean Fred earned $8 million this month, which would be, er, rather impressive or does that mean he earned $8 million since July but only about a third or so of it is available for the campaign? Or does it mean something else? I’ll have updates here in a bit.

Update: The Paulnuts raised a cool mil for America’s Greatest Patriot in just seven days.

Update: Since this is, after all, Fred’s first quarter of fundraising, NBC compares his numbers to the first-quarter totals for Rudy McRomney and finds them wanting. Not really fair. The campaign season was still fresh in January and donors had money to burn. Now the fatigue has set in and they’ve already peeled off a few bills so they’re cutting back.

Still, if Team Thompson was banking on some huge reservoir of Republican donors who’d been holding back to open the floodgates upon his entrance, they’re getting a rude awakening.

Here’s something to compare Thompson’s money to: the 1st Q numbers of his three main rivals: Romney raised 21.2M; Giuliani raised 16.6M; McCain raised 13M.

By comparison, Fred’s $7-8M (or even $10 million) this quarter is not great. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell reports that sources say Fred Thompson will report in excess of $8 million, but would not say if the campaign breaks the $10 million mark in his campaign’s first FEC filing. More specifically, advisors say Thompson has 70,000 individual donors, which they claim describe as “a huge signal of grassroots support.” About one quarter of the money raised comes from online donors. And since his formal announcement day in early September, advisors claim they have raised 200-thousand dollars a day.

Advisors acknowledge the third-quarter filing may be “a little less than” Giuliani, but they claim their fundraising makes Thompson “competitive.” They claim to “feel good.”