Feds Let GOP Candidate Pay Jan. 6 Costs with Campaign Cash

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

The Daily Beast
@thedailybeast
·
Follow
Republican congressional candidate Derrick Van Orden used campaign funds to pay for a trip to D.C. to attend the Jan. 6 riot. The GOP commissioners on the FEC allowed it.

thedailybeast.com
Feds Let GOP Candidate Pay Jan. 6 Costs with Campaign Cash
Republican congressional candidate Derrick Van Orden used campaign funds to pay for a trip to D.C. to attend the Jan. 6 riot. The GOP commissioners on the FEC allowed it.
4:35 PM · Sep 5, 2022

https://www.thedailybeast.com/feds-let-gop-candidate-derrick-van-orden-pay-jan-6-costs-with-campaign-cash

No paywall
https://archive.ph/aD5tZ

Candidates can get away with using campaign donations to travel to an insurrection, according to a new Federal Election Commission decision—as long as they’re thrifty.

That’s the upshot for Derrick Van Orden, the Republican congressional candidate from Wisconsin who dipped into donor funds to bankroll a trip to D.C., where, as The Daily Beast reported last year, he appeared on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 riot.

On Friday, the commissioners published their unanimous July 26 decision to dismiss allegations that Van Orden’s Jan. 6 travel expenses constituted unlawful personal use of campaign money—though they did not technically rule it was legal, either.

Instead, the commissioners didn’t even take up the merits of the case, arguing that the amount of money involved was too small to move ahead with further enforcement action. The agency’s general counsel made the same recommendation in its report, writing that even if the expenses were personal in nature, the amount in question—a few hundred dollars—was so small that it “does not merit the expenditure of further Commission resources to pursue.”

As often happens in politically charged decisions, the Democratic and Republican commissioners released competing explanations. In this case, those statements had one key difference: The Democrats condemned the expenses; the Republicans were silent.

*snip*


Corruption being normalized.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. This is insane. The Gangsters Of Putin don't even try to hide it any more.

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

Donate to 38 House candidates: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217067267
Stick 'em up for a blue wave: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217078977

[crickets]

2. Wait, what? That's crazy. This is from the FEC? Aw, hell no. nt

[uponit7771]

3. No one enforces the law when the Republicans break it