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Herschel Walker started a 'recount fund,' but the recount never happened. Where'd the money go? [1]
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Date: 2023-02-23
The Daily Beast:
Some [irregularities] were fairly common clerical issues. Other items were more eye-catching, like the recount fund, which one campaign finance expert said looked like a “dumping ground for excess contributions.”
Wait, is this about a Republican showing utter contempt for his loyal donors and voters? That can’t be right, can it? Well, at least he was serious about protecting fetuses. Some of them, anyway.
The Daily Beast’s independent review of Team Herschel’s end-game fundraising and spending turned up other oddities. They included hefty sums hauled in after the election, an in-kind private flight donation for the “recount” from Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), as well as a mysterious six-figure payout two weeks after the election to a family friend whom the campaign had previously described as a “dedicated volunteer.” , also ended 2022 with less than $6 million on hand.) Not least of the puzzles is the campaign’s $5 million cash on hand—a sizable chunk of change for a candidate that, by all appearances, would have needed to burn every available dollar to keep pace with his deep-pocketed opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). (Warnock, who outraised Walker by more than $100 million , also ended 2022 withon hand.)
Okay, let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe this “recount fund” was created to help Walker recount exactly how many abortions he’s paid for. Because that’s the only thing that makes sense. After all, there was no recount—because the results of the Dec. 6 runoff election weren’t terribly close.
RELATED STORY: A roundup of the joy (and jokes) celebrating Raphael Warnock's victory over Herschel Walker
“It looks like the Walker campaign largely treated its ‘recount fund’ as a dumping ground for excess contributions,” said Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of Documented, an investigative watchdog group that examined The Daily Beast’s data. “It does not appear that Walker expressly fundraised for a recount or spent any recount funds seriously exploring a potential election challenge. Instead, the Walker campaign just allocated excess contributions to a recount fund.”
As the FEC itself noted in its letter to the Walker Senate campaign, hoarding money in a fund that was created for a recount that never occurred is, for some weird reason, not allowed.
Schedule A of your report discloses donations designated for a recount of the 2022 election. It appears neither a recount was held nor did the committee disburse these funds for recount activities. If the committee did not participate in a recount or recount activities, then the donations designated for the recount must be refunded or redesignated within 60 days from the date it becomes known that a recount will not occur.
The Daily Beast also spoke with Saurav Ghosh, a former lawyer with the FEC’s enforcement division and director of the Campaign Legal Center, who said the FEC’s notice was “striking.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that,” Ghosh said. “It’s almost like they read our blog or the recent press reports talking about the issue of recount funds not getting enough scrutiny and potentially being used for things other than a recount, Maybe we’re pushing the needle in the right direction.”
Or maybe the FEC has decided to finally look at the finances of known serial liars. For instance, New York Rep. George Santos, a silver medal winner in the GOP Lying Olympics, also allegedly had a fund for a 2020 recount that was clearly never going to happen. And we all know about Donald Trump’s ongoing, multimillion-dollar “Stop the Steal” grift.
But while the red flags the FEC raised are alarming enough, it’s what Walker may have done with the recount money that’s particularly troubling.
According to The Daily Beast, two weeks after the runoff election, the Walker campaign paid Michelle Beagle, a Walker family friend and campaign volunteer, $127,500 for “logistics consulting.” That seems like an odd post-election payout for a volunteer whose highest-profile contribution might have been convincing Walker to pull out his Toys R Us sheriff’s badge during his lone debate with Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Beagle’s most publicly impactful decision, however, may have come in the debate. She was the person who advised Walker to flash his honorary deputy badge on the stage, according to two staffers with knowledge of the decision. Another staffer said “completely unclear where the badge idea came from,” and that Beagle was not a prime suspect.
In other words, she was worse than useless.
As one former Walker staffer, who compared Blanchard to Lady Macbeth, said, “Pardon my French, but fuck Julie and fuck Michele Beagle.”
Well, if there’s really more fire underneath this smoke, Beagle could be screwed regardless.
Stay tuned.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/23/2154597/-Herschel-Walker-started-a-recount-fund-but-the-recount-never-happened-Where-d-the-money-go
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