Jordan Libowitz, Ethics Watchdog: “McCormick’s Campaign Appears to Have Broken One of the Few Clearly Defined Fundraising Laws”
Daily Beast: “The Shell Company is Obscuring the True Recipient of Travel Expenses”
PENNSYLVANIA — A new report from the Daily Beast is raising new questions about David McCormick’s use of campaign funds to enrich himself and boost his campaign. The report details how McCormick appears to bend the rules by illegally using a state level PAC to underwrite his campaign activity. The report also highlights how McCormick may have violated federal law by overspending money that his donors gave to his 2022 campaign.
This report comes after McCormick was caught running a “shadow operation” to boost his run for U.S. Senate in ways that were potentially “flatly illegal” and exposed for using the same PAC to boost his own book sales.
ICYMI: Daily Beast: Wealthy GOP Senate Candidate Appears to Have Illegally Spent Donor Cash
- Multimillionaire Dave McCormick put more than $14 million of his own money into his failed 2022 Senate campaign. But as he mounts a 2024 comeback, new disclosures this week reveal that, despite his enormous personal investment, his 2022 campaign still overspent money that his donors had contributed—in violation of federal law.
- This time around—months before Donald Trump blessed him with an endorsement—McCormick was already under scrutiny for financing what legal experts said appeared to be a shadow campaign ahead of his 2024 revenge run.
- But now, McCormick is raising new money from new donors not just to fund his 2024 bid, but—oddly enough—for his old 2022 campaign as well. And according to new Federal Election Commission filings, he’s also just now getting around to repaying a number of those 2022 donors, whose money his old campaign appears to have spent in the meantime, likely in violation of federal law.
- A McCormick spokesperson did not respond to The Daily Beast’s comment request.
- Jordan Libowitz, communications director for watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast that McCormick’s campaign appears to have broken one of the few clearly defined fundraising laws.
- “There are very few hard rules, and this is one of them,” Libowitz said.
- According to FEC filings submitted on Monday, on the last day of March this year McCormick’s old campaign refunded about $75,000 to donors who had contributed to his 2022 bid. Most of that money—$49,613.29—was marked as having been donated for the 2022 general, where McCormick was not a candidate. However, by the end of 2022, McCormick’s campaign only had $7,800 on hand. That math appears to mean the campaign spent more than $40,000 of donor funds that it was not allowed to touch in the first place.
- “I certainly haven’t seen something like this before,” Libowitz said, adding that if McCormick is just keeping Roe’s debt on the books in order to repay donors whose money he’s already spent, “that would be another major issue.”
- In October, The Daily Beast reported that Pennsylvania Rising’s spending, together with public reports documenting McCormick’s political moves at the time, bore the hallmarks of a “shadow campaign.” That fact pattern—including significant overlap with McCormick’s 2022 campaign in staff and consulting payments—led legal experts to raise questions about whether McCormick was using the state PAC to underwrite campaign activity while evading the federal ban on soft money.
- But that PAC, it turns out, is still spending money—and now it’s demonstrating new overlap with McCormick’s Senate campaign. Both the state PAC and McCormick’s 2024 campaign have recently paid tens of thousands of dollars to a newly created private company. The shell company is obscuring the true recipient of travel expenses.
- “You get into some tricky waters,” Libowitz said. “He’s already running. He shouldn’t be using the state PAC in that way.”
- …He added that the PA Travel LLC payments are “enough to raise some eyebrows,” noting two other details: the timing of its creation, and its direct connection to the McCormick campaign.
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