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The Salt Lake Tribune

Feds sue, allege Johnson illegally donated to Mike Lee, Harry Reid and former Utah A.G.

By TOM HARVEY | and Robert Gehrke | The Salt Lake Tribune connect

First Published Jun 19 2015 09:15PM • Last Updated Feb 17 2016 03:02 pm

Indicted St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson illegally funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Sens. Harry Reid and Mike Lee as well as then-Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, according to a new federal lawsuit.

In a complaint filed Friday in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court, the Federal Election Commission accused Johnson of giving about $50,000 to Lee’s 2010 campaign after John Swallow, Shurtleff’s top aide and handpicked successor, advised him that the Republican Senate hopeful, if elected, could influence the selection of Utah’s next U.S. attorney, who then could protect Johnson’s business interests.

“Johnson has reported that Swallow said to him: ‘[I]t is important that we raise this money and make Mike Lee our guy,’ “ according to the complaint. “ ‘[H]e is going to be choosing the next U.S. attorney and you gotta have him in your corner and you gotta have the U.S. attorney in your corner, especially while you are processing poker [payments] in this district.’ “

At the time, federal law limited campaign contributions to $2,400 per person, per election. The FEC alleges that Johnson gave tens of thousands of dollars to friends and associates to make so-called “straw donations” as a way to dodge those caps.

There is no indication in the complaint that Lee, Shurtleff or Reid knew Johnson was making illegal donations to their campaigns.

“At no time during the 2010 campaign, was Senator Lee or anyone associated with the Lee campaign aware of any unlawful contributions to the Lee campaign,” Boyd Matheson, Lee’s chief of staff, said Friday. “The documents obtained by investigators confirm that the scheme was known only to individuals who may have been involved as stated in the report.”

Shurtleff’s attorney, Richard Van Wagoner, said that his client “relied on his professional campaign finance staff to accept only legal contributions, and he had no knowledge of prohibited donations, if any, to his Senate campaign.”

“We know nothing about Mr. Johnson’s latest legal problems with the Federal Election Commission,” said Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman.

Swallow’s lawyer could not be reached Friday evening.

The FEC complaint says Johnson enlisted straw donors to kick in $20,000 to the 2010 re-election push of Nevada’s Reid, the Senate’s Democratic leader. The aim, again, was to shield Johnson businesses, which then included a southern Utah operation that processed online-poker payments.

Johnson said Friday that the FEC complaint stems from interviews he gave investigators pursuing multiple criminal charges against Swallow and Shurtleff.

“For my cooperation, I was guaranteed immunity. In other words, the information I shared in those confidential meetings with the FBI and state agents, I was told, would not be used to hurt me in any way. For reasons yet to be explained to me, that very information is now being used against me by the Federal Election Commission Election Commission,” he said in an emailed statement. “I am stunned. I can’t imagine anybody who wouldn’t be outraged if they were in my shoes.”

Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings, who along with Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill investigated Swallow and is now prosecuting Shurtleff, backed, to some extent, Johnson’s version of events.

“There is more truth than fiction to Jeremy Johnson’s statement,” Rawlings wrote in an email late Friday. “In exchange for his significant cooperation, he is getting screwed by the United States government. I have demanded to know why and exactly who is behind this.”

Swallow acted as a chief fundraiser for Shurtleff, a former three-term attorney general, when the latter was exploring a run in 2009 against incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

Shurtleff dropped out of the race. By the time he did so, however, Johnson already had contributed about $100,000 to his campaign through straw donors, the FEC complaint
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