The mainstream media is about to have a field day.
Lauren Boebert, a Republican congresswoman from Colorado, is facing allegations of unlawfully utilizing $60,000 for campaign-related phone calls and text messages during the lead-up to the midterm elections in November.
According to Newsweek, End Citizens United, a political action committee, has lodged a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), accusing the Republican Party’s PAC of spending tens of thousands of dollars on “get out the vote” communication calls and texts, which were not properly reported.
Newsweek has exclusively obtained an FEC filing that alleges Lauren Boebert, her campaign Lauren Boebert For Colorado, her PAC We The People Leadership, and her campaign treasurer Taylor Moose, failed to properly report communications as independent expenditures or in-kind contributions on their filings with the Commission.
End Citizens United, which advocates for the removal of “big money” from politics and has backed Democratic candidates, asserts that the “get out the vote” calls could have been aimed at aiding Boebert’s congressional bid, during which she narrowly defeated Democrat Adam Frisch by a margin of just 546 votes. The group claims that Boebert may have unlawfully made an in-kind contribution to her own campaign, surpassing the $5,000 limit mandated by federal law, or spent money to influence another campaign without accurately reporting it, as required by law.
In the 2022 midterm elections, the Republican Party failed to reclaim the Senate and attained a significantly smaller House majority than expected. Boebert’s narrow reelection victory, in a predominantly Republican district she had won by a margin of 9 percent in 2020, was among the most notable instances of Republicans underperforming. Before the election, Frisch’s campaign was regarded as a longshot in the district.
End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller informed Newsweek that “Congresswoman Boebert misused her leadership PAC as her own personal bank account, which is against federal law.”
“The timing of the purchases and the fact that it was made to the same vendor her campaign used clearly illustrates that she was attempting to bypass federal law to either influence her own race or another campaign. The FEC should launch an investigation into this corrupt scheme and hold Congresswoman Boebert accountable,” she added.
According to FEC records, Lauren Boebert For Congress reported paying $4,623.22 to Telephone Town Hall Meeting, Inc. for “text message advertising” on October 28, 2022. On the same day, We The People Leadership PAC paid $6,221.73 to Telephone Town Hall Meeting, Inc. for “Voter Contact – GOTV Calls/Texts.”
On November 18, 2022, We The People Leadership PAC disclosed a second payment of $53,760.25 to Telephone Town Hall Meeting, Inc. for conducting “Voter Contact – GOTV Calls/Texts.”
Federal law stipulates that if a leadership PAC pays for communications, such as GOTV calls, to bolster a candidate, the expenditure is considered an in-kind contribution and is subject to the leadership PAC’s $5,000 per-election contribution limit to that candidate.