According to a report published by The Daily Caller, Beto O’Rourke paid roughly $110,000 to a consulting company owned by either himself or his wife.
TDC reviewed documents which show Beto for Texas making payments to Stanton Street Technology Group, a web development firm owned by the O’Rourkes.
Beto for Texas paid Stanton Street Technology Group $58,544 during the 2011-12 election cycle, $39,060 during the 2013-14 cycle, $9,290 in the 2015-16 cycle and $32,778 during the 2017-18 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.Either O’Rourke or his wife owned Stanton Street — a small web development firm that O’Rourke founded in 1998 — during the vast majority of those payments. Such payments are legal, so long as the campaign is charged for the actual cost of the services, but ethics watchdogs have criticized the practice as a form of self-dealing.O’Rourke’s wife, Amy Sanders O’Rourke, took over Stanton Street as the Texas Democrat entered Congress in January 2013. She controlled it until early 2017.Amy O’Rourke sold her stake in the company on March 31, 2017, according to Beto O’Rourke’s 2017 year-end financial disclosure report. He listed the sale value in the $100,001 to $1 million range.Stanton Street publicly announced the sale more than two months after the fact in a June 2017 blog post that listed CEO Brian Wancho as Amy O’Rourke’s buyer.Beto O’Rourke doubled as both candidate and treasurer during his first congressional campaign in 2011 and 2012, according to FEC records.Beto for Texas paid the candidate’s own business for services including “consulting” and “social media” during that time, FEC records show.
Totally ethical to pay your self for work being done on your own campaign. Totally.
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