Newly elected Rep. Ross Spano admits he "may have" broken campaign finance law
8 replies, posted
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newly-elected-gop-rep-admits-he-may-have-broken-campaign-finance-law
Rep.-elect Ross Spano (R-FL) admitted Friday that loans he made to his campaign committee “may have been in violation of the Federal Campaign Finance Act.”
In a letter dated Friday to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a lawyer for Spano listed $180,000 in personal loans Spano took out during his congressional campaign from two
people, who Spano claims are longtime friends, between June and October. Around the same, Spano personally lent his campaign nearly the same amount from “personal funds.”
While candidates for federal office may donate or loan an unlimited amount of their own personal wealth to their campaigns, according to federal election law: “If any person, including
a relative or friend of the candidate, gives or loans the candidate money ‘for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office,’ the funds are not considered personal funds of
the candidate even if they are given to the candidate directly.”
Loans given for the purpose of influencing a federal election, according to the law, are subject to standard $2,700-per-election limits. Spano and his lawyer have painted the episode as
one big oversight.
But Spano’s defeated Democratic opponent, Kristen Carlson, has referred the matter to the FBI for investigation, and according to the Tampa Bay Times, Spano’s Republican primary
opponent, a former state representative, “has also accused him of breaking the law.”
And the Tampa Bay Times reported during the campaign itself that Spano was months overdue in filing a personal financial disclosure form that ultimately revealed the personal loans
he took from the two friends.
Spano also initially lowballed the amount of one loan. A footnote in his letter to the FEC blames the mistake — which listed a loan of $75,000 erroneously as $35,000 — on a
“draftsman’s error.” A Spano spokesperson told the Times Saturday that he had not yet received “any letter of inquiry” from the FEC, the paper reported.
One of the loaners has also been screening congressional staff for him.
Stop, the House is already flipped!!! 😭
When you have a president who so brazenly breaks the law unpunished, you get lower level people feeling emboldened that they can get away with it too.
It's corruption all the way down.
... Huh. Well, at least this one has the balls to just come out and admit it.
After being exposed in his mandatory and conspicuously very overdue FEC disclosure form, so let's not start sucking his dick and calling him a good boy now.
Oh yeah no, definitely not. I'm just saying, it's a nice change of pace from the usual "nope that's fake news we never did that, nope nuh-uh"
You either did, or didn't, none of this "may have" bullshit. You aren't fooling anyone who can use 1% of their brain.
Are there any consequences to running illegal campaigns after you win? It's impossible to quantify what effect the cheating had, so is there anything you can do except shrug and send a small fine?
trump next year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0GCKXZTV8E
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.