The Daily Caller News Foundation has discovered that failed independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin may be violating campaign finance laws.
The holier-than-thou candidate’s campaign ended in a boatload of debt and it appears he “has missed every deadline to file the required financial statements since then.”
Almost a year ago to today, Fuzzy blogged about McMullin’s financial problems. The Salt Lake City Tribune noted that he still owed $670,000 to vendors, which could cause a problem for him if he ever wanted to run for office again.
It looks like those money problems have not gone away and may be worsening.
From The Daily Caller:
McMullin’s committee was nearly $645,000 in debt just after the 2016 presidential election, according to a financial statement the group filed to the FEC in December 2016. By July 2017, it increased to nearly $670,000, that month’s filing shows.That was the last financial statement McMullin’s committee filed. Since then, the organization has missed three deadlines, including one that passed Sunday. The FEC has consequently sent the group warnings that it could face penalties if it doesn’t provide the necessary information.“It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to file the above referenced report of receipts and disbursements or failed to file a report covering the entire reporting period as required by the Federal Election Campaign Act,” reads a February letter from the FEC.“The failure to timely file this report may result in civil money penalties, suspension of matching funds payments, an audit or legal enforcement action,” the letter continues. “The civil money penalty calculation for late reports does not include a grace period and begins on the day following the due date for the report.”
McMullin’s campaign received four letters from the FEC before the February letter. The commission wanted to know “why it submitted amended versions of its financial statements with increased debt.” A letter in March 2017 about the filings from September 2016 noted that the forms included “an increase in debts owed to one or more vendor(s) totaling $339,389.57.”
This is how McMullin’s campaign responded in April 2017:
The committee was “immediately confronted with the difficulties of acquiring vendors, recruiting volunteers, raising money, obtaining ballot access, and organizing for the election which was a mere 85 days away” after it was formed, the group’s treasurer, Jeffrey Carson, wrote in a letter to the FEC. “Given these circumstances, there was a lack of organization in the initial committee structural and vendor acquisition phase.”“Unfortunately, this led to outstanding vendor invoices being unreported as debts owed by the committee,” Carson continued. “Once the committee was structurally sound, the committee’s outstanding invoices were discovered” and it “amended its past FEC reports.”“The committee has since taken measures to adopt and implement organizational best practices which should prevent errors like this from occurring in the future,” he concludes. However, the committee only filed one additional financial statement following the treasurer’s letter.
Like I said, since the election, McMullin has maintained his holier-than-thou attitude on social media, even bashing Trump for his debt.
Look at the time stamp. McMullin was swimming in his own massive debt when he typed those words.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY