⚡️Campaign Finance🧵: Adam Kinzinger

Have you ever wondered what becomes of socially awkward politicians with no marketable skills, aside from crying on cue, when they are gerrymandered out of public office?

Better yet, do you ever wonder what happens to all the leftover campaign $$ they bilked out of pussy-hat wearing cat ladies in the name of saving our Democracy™?

If the answer is yes, this one’s for you!

Prior to finding fame in the J6 fallout, the most remarkable thing about Mr. Kinzinger was just how unremarkable his congressional career had been.

Despite representing the reddest district in IL Kinzinger prided himself on being a bipartisan stooge at every turn.

He co-authored a few pieces of legislation, notably the 2016 Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, aimed at “stoping Russian interference into our elections” but that’s about it.

His fundraising efforts were decent but never excessive (using Congress’ standard). In his first 5 terms in office, Mr. Kinzinger never raised (green) more than $2.45 million (2020) across all of his campaign committees and he never spent (yellow) more than $2.53 million (2018).

However, as we all know, America was changed forever on that fateful day in January, 2021. Our Democracy™ was threatened and the burden to save it had fallen on the shoulders of men like Adam Kinzinger.

First step towards saving Democracy™? Opening a second JFC.

Unfortunately the Illinois state legislature had other plans & in Spring 2021 they redrew the IL district lines combining 2 R districts into 1. Rather than get into a grueling primary w the other Republican, Kinzinger announced on Oct 29, 2021 that he would not seek re-election.

Now normally this would be the end of the story; no re-election means no more campaign fundraising. Time to wrap it up and move along to K Street with all the other washed up politicians whoring themselves out to the highest special interest bidder.

But curiously enough, that’s not where our story ends. In fact, that’s where it just gets started. You see, Mr. Kinzinger had found himself quite the lucrative niche role to play in American politics following January 6: Republican Man of Conscience®

How lucrative, you ask? Well for the 2022 cycle Mr. Kinzinger tripled his previous record raising $6,728,851 across all committees. This, despite not running for reelection!

Wait. How was the even possible?

Behold the power of campaign committees!

10 days after announcing his retirement Kinzinger converted his new JFC into a Leadership PAC.

Now, he was free to continue raising $ in the name of saving Democracy™ by soliciting $ under the guise of helping Country First Patriots™ win elections across America!

So did he? Not exactly…

Despite raising $6.7 million in the 2022 cycle, Kinzinger gave only abt $140k across all committees to other candidates.

TBF: he needed to pay for the airplane hanger he was keeping his new plane in.

Yes friends, it appears you can not only bill your campaign to store your personal airplane, but you can also reimburse yourself for the miles you flew that plane (when conducting the business of your Leadership PAC, of course 😉)

Naturally no Republican campaign expenditure list would be complete without AT LEAST $1.5 million in consulting fees.

But hold on… Mr. Kinzinger wasn’t running a campaign… so why did he need $1.75 million in consulting?

Furthermore, why did Kinzinger’s Leadership PAC buy his campaign committee a new “campaign vehicle” a month before he left office?

Uhhh… HELLO FEC! Anyone home?!

Anyone care to check what happened to the *other* campaign car Kinzinger had? You know, the one he bought in 2020?

Then there’s the clubs… can’t forget the clubs! You see, when you become a Republican Man of Conscience® you get invited to join ALL the swanky DC social clubs… but it ain’t cheap

Kinzinger billed his principal campaign $25,000 for his membership to Capitol Hill Club.

And another $40,000 fee to join the “Former Members of Congress Club”

$65,000 in membership dues to private clubs… weird… I could’ve sworn the FEC said this was a no-no?

So clearly Kinzinger was living it up in his last year in office… but what happened next?

Well despite his wild spending sprees, Mr. Kinzinger still left office with a LOT of money leftover.

$3,344,001 to be exact

(He came into the 2022 cycle with $1.5 million on hand)

Turns out those nationally televised, prime time hearings he & his staff scripted and directed were quite a hit with donor crowd because the money never seemed to stop flowing for Mr. Kinzinger. It’s truly impressive.

First step when leaving office with $2.4 million still in your principal campaign committee? Convert that committee into another PAC.

2nd step: transfer $2 mil to your 1st Leadership PAC

And $250k to your other leadership PAC

3rd: sprinkle $150k to randos

Now that the money is freed from those pesky campaign committee rules, things get a lot less… restrictive.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be expenses… that airplane isn’t gonna store itself!

There’s the $21,000 in airfare mileage reimbursements on top of the $60,000 in regular airfare…

The $16,000 in “travel expenses”

Plus hotels, meals, and OFC CONSULTANTS!!

Okay but still… where did the REST of the money go? Well my friend, allow me to introduce you to the next layer of campaign finance slime…

the 501(c)3 and 501(c)4

aka: nonprofits

aka: THE BLACK HOLE

Mr. Kinzinger did one more thing before leaving office, he opened a 501(c)3, under the name Country First Foundation, using the same mailing address as his leadership PACs, and he was granted tax-exempt status from the IRS on 3/13/23 (effective 6/9/22)

In 2023 Kinzinger transferred $415,000 into Country First Foundation

and another $348,546 to an entity called “Country First Action” that uses the same mailing addresses as his Leadership PACs and 501(c)3

but Country First Action isn’t registered separately w the IRS, so…

GuideStar has a profile for Country First Foundation which is how we know that Mr. Kinzinger chose Austin Weatherford to run it.

Who is Austin Weatherford you ask?

Well, Mr. Weatherford is Kinzingers former chief of staff, but more importantly, according to his own website

“…Weatherford played a key role in producing, editing, scripting and advising on the televised hearings of the US House Select Committee on the January 6 attack”

Isn’t that convenient? Help the Biden administration pull off a televised smear of the MAGA crowd and in exchange you get to head up a BS nonprofit, seeded with close to half a million from your old boss!

Good work if you’re not partial to your soul.

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow!

If you enjoy my 🧵s please be sure to share them! And if you want to support independent journalism, I drink lots of coffee 😉

MelThank you so much for your support!http://buymeacoffee.com/Villgecrazylady

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Mel

@Villgecrazylady

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⚡️Campaign Finance🧵: Campaign Committees If you want to follow the money in politics you have to know all the places to look 👀 A crash course in campaign committees you probably didn’t even know existed 👇

One common misconception abt campaign finance is that the Citizens United ruling allows the rich to give as much💰as they want to politicians for their campaigns. This is false. Campaign contribution limits are still firmly in place & are capped @ $6,600 total for the 2024 cycle

So how do our corrupt politicians get around that? You already know about ghost donors, but allow me to introduce you to the perfectly legal world of “Campaign Committes.” First up: Joint Fundraising Committees aka JFC(s)

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Mel

@Villgecrazylady

Mar 6

You know what I find super impressive?! The fact that @AdamSchiff was able to raise over $31 million for his Senate campaign in just 13 months despite the fact that 65% of his donors report being unemployed. This, after he just finished raising $23.6 million for his 2022 House race where, again, 64% of his donors reported being unemployed. Serious question? Why does an 11 term Congressman in a D+23 district need to raise $23.6 million from mostly unemployed Americans… and then spend over $17 million to win reelection in a race where all the other candidates combined raised less than $200,000?

You’ll notice it says $18.2 million in disbursements but that number includes $175 k in refunds & another million in donations to other campaigns. Yes, that’s right, Schiff gave less than 5% of what he raised away to help other candidates. With this kind of ludicrously wasteful campaign spending on himself, you’d be forgiven for mistaking him for a Republican!

Not according to his filings. His 2022 filings say his principle campaign only took in $504k in PAC $ and just 11% of his total raised came from donations >$2,000. No, it appears our man Adam is a true man of the people… King of the “small dollar donor,” you could say! 😏

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Mel

@Villgecrazylady

Feb 27

⚡️Campaign Finance 🧵: Letitia James When I got asked to look into Letitia James’ financials last week, I really wasn’t expecting to find much. As you probably know, James is the Attorney General of New York who just secured a $454 million judgement against Donald Trump.

James was elected as the NY AG in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Prior to that James was the NYC “public advocate” for 4 years and a NYC city council member for 8 years prior to that. Prior to elected office she was a public defender for Legal Aid.

IOW Letitia James is a lifelong public servant and other than a mishap in the 2010s where she neglected to list the Brooklyn brownstone she owns & rents out on her financial disclosure forms, she hasn’t had any public scandals.

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Mel

@Villgecrazylady

Feb 18

Y’all want to see what a ghost donor bot looks like? Here’s the data from a 65 yo retired man living in a 962 sq ft house in Clawson, Michigan. From 2019-2023 the FEC has recorded him making over 15,600 separate donations to political campaigns. The list below shows the receiving campaign, the # of donations made and the total amount donated from 2019-2023

This list is just Presidential, Senate & House campaigns. It does not include the 5,000+ donations “he” made to Joint Fundraising Committees or the 1,000+ donations “he” made to leadership committees.

Now ask yourself this… who makes 517 different donations to Tim Scott’s presidential campaign and then turns around and makes 557 separate donations to Nikki Haley’s campaign?

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Mel

@Villgecrazylady

Dec 1, 2023

Dan Crenshaw spent over $2 million dollars on “events” and event related services, like event make-up and jet rentals, in the 2022 cycle. He spent over $500,000 on travel. Including $47,000 on black car rentals. Crenshaw spent $200,000 on promotional eyepatches and glassware. He billed his campaign $36,000 for “petty cash” He spent $166,000 on hotels, most of them luxury hotels, in vacation destinations like Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Coronado Beach, California. All in all, Crenshaw spent over $14 million from his primary campaign fund to win reelection in his R+18 district. His Democrat opponent spent less than $200,000. None of the numbers below include the expenses he billed for in his Joint Fundraising Committee (another $1.8 million) or his Leadership PAC ($75,000). And I’m supposed to care about George Santos? At least George Santos did something impressive with his campaign funds: unseat a 3 term Dem incumbent in a D+2 district.

Richard Hudson spent $1.8 million to get re-elected in his R+9 district in 2022. His Democrat opponent spent $90,000. Since his re-election was a forgone conclusion, Hudson didn’t bother with silly things like renting a campaign office. Instead he spent his money “consulting.” And travel. And a rental car. Somehow Hudson ran up $44,000 in rental car bills… almost like his campaign was paying for him to use a rental car full time🤔 Hudson also had a few luxury hotels billed to his account, and his campaign paid $1,200 for a ski lift in Telluride at one of these “campaign events.” He billed his campaign $28,000 for challenge coins- whatever the fvck those are? And of course, there’s the $25,839 he billed for his custom campaign apparel from Vineyard Vines. Weird how I’m supposed to be mad that George Santos spent $6,000 at Ferragamo but totally cool with Dickie Hudson dropping $25,000 on Vineyard Vines?

Steve Scalise has already used his campaign funds to spend $1,141,819 on “travel/facility rentals/catering/food/beverages” in just the first 9 months of this year. A company called Strategic Advance Services bills Scalise’s Leadership campaign anywhere from $40,000 to $250,000 per month for these services. On what planet is it morally acceptable for a sitting member of Congress to bill his campaign an average of over $100,000/month for food and travel? Steve Scalise’s 3 campaign funds spent over $27 million dollars in the 2022 cycle on crap like this 👇 but please, tell me more about George Santos’ one night in Vegas

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Mel

@Villgecrazylady

Sep 6, 2023

Came across this today and thought you all might like to see what a stark difference there was between the 2018 cycle and the 2020 cycle. Remember how I said *something* happened for Democrats in 2018 that sent their small dollar receipts through the roof? And then that very same something happened for Republicans in 2020? Take a look at Kevin McCarthy’s 2018 small $ donations vs 2020’s In 2018 McCarthy received just $29,422 total in donations less than $200. For that $29,422, there were just 57 receipts. Nearly all of them are people who gave $100 twice which put them at the $200 threshold for itemization (i.e. record keeping). Flash forward to 2020, just two years later and now Kevin McCarthy is reporting $16,814,474 in donations less than $200 and a total of 81,691 receipts. Except these aren’t a bunch of duplicate $100 donations. These are receipts for people making dozens, sometimes hundreds of donations, for anywhere from a few pennies to just $10 (remember, they have to make 20 $10 donations to make the record keeping cutoff).

Take for instance this woman named Janet. Janet went from having never made more than two donations to any politician, EVER, to donating over 740 times in a single cycle to just Kevin McCarthy. In total, Janet made 15,186 donations in the 2020 cycle for a total of $42,951- but the average donation was just $2.83.

From 2016 to 2018 House Democrats increased their total fundraising intake by 220%. Nothing like that had ever happened before as far as i have seen.

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