Is Beto’s Campaign Response to Project Veritas Undercover Investigation Sufficient?
“The value was under $300 and it will be appropriately reported to the FEC.”
Thursday night, Project Veritas released it’s latest undercover video. The video appears to show Beto staffers discussing what they know to be improper campaign spending.
In the video, various staffers discuss using campaign funds to help incoming immigrants. This is not one staffer suggesting as much nor a volunteer, but several different staffers suggesting (based on the video clips provided by Project Veritas) they’re aware using campaign funds is not allowed and go on to discuss ways to skirt the spending rules.
One even mentions the possibility that getting busted could invoke a $50,000 fine.
The video:
BREAKING @PVeritas_Action: BREAKING: "Nobody needs to know" Beto Campaign Appears to Illegally Spend Funds on Supplies for Caravan Aliens, Campaign Manager Says "Don't Worry" https://t.co/ZKR7XsMZMN pic.twitter.com/6BjWpD6yM1
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 2, 2018
Friday, O’Rourke’s campaign responded, saying “staffers recently “took it upon themselves” to use campaign funds to donate supplies to an El Paso nonprofit and that the contributions — less than $300 total — will be “appropriately reported” to the Federal Election Commission,” reports the Amarillo ABC affiliate. The campaign also claims that staffers used prepaid cards to buy baby wipes and other supplies for migrants staying with a local charity.
Responding to the video Friday morning, O’Rourke’s campaign said that the staffers were responding to an unrelated incident last week in which the federal government dropped off over 100 migrants seeking asylum at a bus station in downtown El Paso. The local newspaper said that bus station officials then called Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit immigrant shelter.
“Staff members took it upon themselves to use prepaid cards from one of our more than 700 field offices to buy baby wipes, diapers, water, fruit and granola bars, and donate them to a local humanitarian nonprofit (Annunciation House) that helps mothers and children in the community,” O’Rourke spokesman Chris Evans said in a statement. “The value was under $300 and it will be appropriately reported to the FEC.”
It is not unusual for campaigns to make donations to groups like Annunciation House. Campaigns are allowed to give to charity “as long as the candidate does not receive compensation from the charitable organization before it has expended the entire amount donated,” according to the FEC website.
In El Paso, Jame O’Keefe confronted O’Rourke Campaign Manager, Jody Casey:
We sent your paper the press release last night when we published. We showed video Beto Campaign Manager @jodyforbeto in person, and asked her about use of campaign funds on caravan migrants, she said "no comment," which is a comment. pic.twitter.com/GUwGDq28zI
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 2, 2018
Friday, Project Veritas said Beto should further clarify:
Charity is honorable but be honest if you break the law to do it, @BetoORourke @jodyforbeto pic.twitter.com/3gTfx6IZgt
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 2, 2018
Essentially, this:
Fair enough, but that’s not what people are saying. They’re saying the video is fake and edited improperly. We stand by our reporting and the accuracy and quotes of the Beto staffers and Campaign manager. Charity is honorable but be honest if you break laws to do it @jodyforbeto https://t.co/RqZY89dbXN
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 2, 2018
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
These are Beto’s Hispanic minders. They are using the imbecile like a dummy on their laps.
What makes you think he’s an imbecile and is being used against his will?
I’ve seen a guy go to prison for $26.
Beto – the Mouth Breather WILL be really popular in prison…..
Just sayin’………
Bubba Clinton will go to jail before Beto does – which is to say not in this century or the next.
Need a team of forensic accountants to go through all of beto’s campaign finance books. Anyone illegally diverting funds needs to he indicted. democrats lie cheat and steal at best, they are criminals at worst. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt but so far it’s not looking good.
I’m with you.
That $300 is JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!!!!!
If it was really under $300, they should have shelled out from their own wallets rather than put the campaign at risk. I never expected any effort to prosecute over some kind of humanitarian aid, no matter who the recipient, but no one in authority has investigated yet. If it’s the top if the iceberg, that’s another issue.
As for “pay the fine and keep feeding people”, how about not pay the fine, Beto pays out of his own pocket and feeds people? Or are you just going to be complete idiots flaunting your contempt for the law?
Leftists always show their “compassion” for the poor by spending other peoples’ money on them.
And stealing other people’s homes. (See Germany.)
Is every Beto supporter an up talkER?
Up Taker?
Or did you mean Undertaker?
Chacon gave a very detailed explanation of understanding that what they were doing was a violation of the finance laws and how they planned to circumvent them…. including being careful what they were wearing when making the deliveries.
I added up far more than $300 – more like $300 across several volunteers. Let’s not overlook the violations of their rental contracts for their vans by allowing underage drivers, not listed on the insurance and transporting non-campaign workers. That set up the rental company for huge liabilities if one of the drivers had an accident.
And here’s the punchline.. . Beto is a millionaire married to the daughter of a billionaire… if the campaign had used his personal funds he could have been a hero. Unfortunately libs prefer their charity to come from someone else’s pockets. Beto’s 2020 Campaign Hope Chest isn’t going to last long when the FEC gets finished reading receipts.
(just a fun note – Beto’s father in law is one of the principals in SWG&M Advertising who controls the bulk of ad dollars in that region – the story hit nationwide at 8pm last night my time, the El Paso Times didn’t even mention it until 2pm Mountain Time today and led with Beto’s “ahhh shucks, just $300” statement).
“just a fun note – Beto’s father in law is one of the principals in SWG&M Advertising who controls the bulk of ad dollars in that region – the story hit nationwide at 8pm last night my time, the El Paso Times didn’t even mention it until 2pm Mountain Time today and led with Beto’s “ahhh shucks, just $300” statement).”
Wow! So there is a Friday night news dump! It goes along with my theory that the DNCC knew that a Dem would be unable to defeat Cruz in TX, but saw an opportunity to raise money from idiot Bernie Bros suckers and transfer the money to viable races.
So it is Beto was collecting money for the Beto family. Gotta hand it to him, it is a brilliant move of selling socialism to make a killing with capitalism.
“”it is a brilliant move of selling socialism to make a killing with capitalism.””
See also: Buffett, Steyer, Turner, et al. The point of socialism is for the rich to get a lot richer while everybody else gets crushed.
Looked at from one perspective, this isn’t such a big deal. It occurred to me that I’ve been involved in something not entirely dissimilar, except that it doesn’t involve election law. I’m involved with a not-for-profit group that receives some logistical help from the manager of a local food pantry. It would be logical for us to show our appreciation by making a donation to the food pantry, but we’ve been advised that legally we can’t do that, even though we’re both 501(c)(3)s, because we’re not the same kind of 501(c)(3); people donating money to us do so with the expectation that it will be used for our purposes, not to feed the hungry. So we get around that by deliberately overcatering our functions and donating the leftovers, which we’re allowed to do. In principle, this is what the O’Rourke people were doing too.
The other perspective, of course, is that these rules are there for a very good reason. There had been a long history of candidates using their campaigns as their personal bank accounts, dipping into them for all sorts of personal expenses, and would-be bribe-givers would thinly disguise their bribes as “campaign donations”, knowing that the candidate would be able to put the money in his pocket. So now it’s strictly illegal to use campaign funds for anything but campaigning, and we can’t overlook a deliberate attempt to flout this law just because it was for a good cause.
It’s cool that the Beta campaign is thwarting the law because you’re doing the same thing.
.
Ummm. No.
“we can’t overlook a deliberate attempt to flout this law just because it was for a good cause”
Agreed. But for me, it’s the attempt to mislead the FEC. Its the difference between involuntary manslaughter and premeditated murder.
I worked for a member of Congress, and when he would come to the district office I managed, sometimes people would show up with a campaign check. He would not accept the check in the office, he would say to the person, “Let’s go outside, down the sidewalk and then you can give it to me. I’m not allowed to accept campaign money in my offices.”
The first day on the job, the guy I was replacing pulled a thick book from the shelf and slammed it on the table.
*THWACK*
“Read this,” he said. It was the House of Rep. rule book. He said especially read the chapter on campaign finance laws.
It pisses me off to no end that this (D) member of Congress does not engender the same respect for the law as the guy I worked for.
Rules for thee but not for me.
What’s going to be done about this crap? I bet nothing.
Unless you turned him in to the FEC, I wouldn’t brag about it. The only people worse than corrupt politicians, are those who abet it.
Turned whom in, for what?
This is the stall. “It was only $300.” The actual numbers will come out after the election, when it doesn’t matter any more. If he wins, they’ll pay the fine and shut up. If he loses (which I hope), they’ll mix the numbers up as much as they can and shut down the campaign in a way that closes the books, say for example transferring all the accounting paperwork to a firm that then folds into bankruptcy.
But the optics!!!!
Yes it’s insufficient and the value was certainly way more than 300 and it doesn’t address everything said in the tapes they were doing. They were not just dropping off some juice boxes at a shelter either….from the tapes it appears they were talking about actually transporting them over the border…
No, it does not. You’re just making that up.
I’ll bet Beto skates.
Right back to El Paso. They deserve each other.
You do realize he doesn’t campaign in El Paso. They hate him there.
He does so much better on the two coasts than he does in Texas.
Which, technically like Ohio or Michigan is a coast but you know what I mean.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2pr5ff
“Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
An Irish Hispanic … A white Indian princess… A black Spartacus… I’m not even going to get into the whites who think they are black or men who think they are women or women who think they are men … Then there are the idiots who nod their heads and agree with them … And they can understand why we think all liberals are freaken nuts
The Cruz campaign should have no problem putting out an advert that strongly implies Beto was financing a voter fraud operation using Honduran illegals.
I know the tapes have no evidence of that, and I’m not on the ground with Cruz – his campaign may decide it’s in their best interests to leave this alone.
BUT, as any of you who have worked in the field for campaigns knows, the last few weeks you are digging for voters. Its akin to a paycheck not hitting, so you’re rooting through the couch cushions for those lost pennies to get you through the weekend.
So there is no way these staffers didn’t consider ways to turn these warm bodies into fraudulent votes for Beto. They have already demonstrated they have no respect for the rules.
Seriously. It doesn’t matter. Cruz is going to blow the Irish Mexican away. Nothing that happens between now and the election will mean anything at all.
I hear ya, I just keep seeing conservatives abandoning attacks that could create ripple effects. We keep letting our opponents get up off the mat. Its frustrating.
Finish them so they’ll stop reappearing in Act III.
Let alone Version 3.
In the long version at youtube, they discuss which stores have vague receipts so they can purchase one type item and claim it was something else. These people are not only breaking the law with the purchases, but they are conspiring as well.
Beto…go ahead and open up the books for everyone to see. Don’t wait for a court order, do it now!