A to Z. The Arizona Republican Party is in hot water. Shortly after the state brought charges last week against a number of party leaders and top Trump advisers related to their alleged roles in the state’s 2020 fake electors scheme, a few FEC filings rolled in suggesting that other issues may lie in wait.
For one, the FEC wants to know why the party committee didn’t reveal the names of any employees in its latest filing—despite reporting payroll and insurance lump outlays for staff, made through third parties. The party apparently hasn’t itemized its employee roster since the end of 2022, per FEC records.
But that letter was just one of nine notices the FEC sent the Arizona GOP this week. Most of the others concern an unclarified $12,500 increase in newly reported debt that the party listed across a number of amended filings, but some of the letters also inquire about administrative spending.
However, a separate letter this week to the unaffiliated “Patriot Freedom PAC” raised a potentially more problematic issue. In that letter, an FEC analyst flagged impermissibly large contributions of $265,000 from a single megadonor in September. On the same day those donations came in, the letter shows, Patriot Freedom PAC transferred $200,000 to the Arizona GOP, which the analyst cited as an impermissibly large contribution to a state committee—in other words, Patriot Freedom appears to have tried to wash an excessive donation to the financially troubled state party.
The person behind the $265,000 is Caryn Borland—a MAGAfied megadonor whose support for QAnon in 2020 forced then-Vice President Mike Pence to cancel a fundraiser that she and her husband were staging for the Trump campaign. The couple has also gifted large sums to legal defense funds for Trump and Rudy Giuliani, who was among the people indicted last week.
Shooting blanks. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has failed in one attempt to vanquish her nemesis. On Thursday, the FEC released a unanimous decision tanking a complaint the Boebert campaign had filed against “American Muckrakers,” a super PAC run by Democratic operative and longtime Boebert agitator David Wheeler.
The complaint—filed with the FEC in August 2022—accuses the super PAC of improperly reporting independent expenditures and failing to include required disclaimers. But the FEC’s Office of General Counsel recommended dismissal, and the commissioners agreed in a 6-0 decision, saying, essentially, that the allegations aren’t worth the agency’s time and resources.
Wheeler—who is tangling with Boebert in an ongoing and unrelated lawsuit over allegedly defamatory statements she made about the PAC—crowed about the decision in a statement to Pay Dirt, saying his group is now 3-0 against her in legal proceedings.
“Thank you to the FEC Commissioners and professional staff for seeing through Lauren Boebert’s fake complaint and ruling unanimously for us,” the statement said, noting that his group is eager to move forward in court after a Denver judge tossed Boebert’s motion to dismiss.
“Federal depositions of Jayson Boebert and Lauren Bobert are going to be lit! We look forward to taking those depositions, and more, soon,” the statement said. “We look forward to garnishing her Congressional wages when we beat her in that case too.”
J’accruz. Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) super PAC podcast has presented a seemingly endless list of problems—including potential issues with the way those problems get resolved.
New reporting from The Dallas Morning News this week revealed that Trey Trainor, a Republican Trump-appointed FEC commissioner, is a big fan, with a Cruz campaign sign planted in the yard of his family’s Texas home. But it’s not just Trainor: current FEC Chair Sean Cooksey, another Trump appointee, served as the Senator’s deputy chief counsel and donated to his 2018 campaign.
This means that two of the six commissioners charged with reviewing a recent FEC complaint from watchdog Campaign Legal Center concerning Cruz’s podcast—which has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for a super PAC that supports him—are outwardly politically aligned with him. But while this has raised concerns among observers about potential political favoritism or the appearance thereof, Trainor and Cooksey seem unmoved.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Trainor recently reposted a photo his wife shared of the Cruz campaign sign. While political engagement is generally permissible under FEC regulations, it could raise concerns about potential bias. Asked whether Trainor would recuse himself from the complaint, an FEC representative said that the commissioner had no comment.
Cooksey, for his part, told the paper that he wasn’t required to recuse himself and wouldn’t do so.
Cruz has lately been the subject of scrutiny over the podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” The Daily Beast previously reported that the company that distributes the podcast, iHeartMedia, has directed about $630,000 in advertising revenue to his allied “Truth and Courage” super PAC.
The details of the deal between the PAC and iHeart, as well as Cruz’s personal involvement, remain unknown, with legal and ethics questions thriving in that information vacuum. Those questions include the main focus of the recent FEC complaint—whether Cruz is illegally coordinating with the supposedly outside group—as well as potential ethics violations at the center of a second complaint, also from CLC, filed with the Senate Ethics Committee.
It’s up to the FEC to sort out whether Cruz broke the rules, a decision that could also set new precedents for similar revenue schemes applied more broadly. But if he slips the hook, the commissioners’ personal support for Cruz—who faces a potentially tight re-election race this year—will at the very least color how the decision is received.
