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Tag: campaign for accountability
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

McCarthy Skirted Ethics Rules To Rent Pollster’s Luxury Pad

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

A watchdog group has filed an ethics complaint against House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, accusing him of lying about a luxury apartment he rented from a top Republican pollster. This comes as he works to remove the only woman on his leadership team for telling the truth about Donald Trump.

The Campaign for Accountability asked the Office of Congressional Ethics on Friday to investigate whether the California Republican broke House rules by renting a room in Frank Luntz's Washington, D.C., condominium at below-market rates — which could have been an illegal and unreported gift.

"House ethics rules are clear and Representative McCarthy is no neophyte. As leader of the House Republicans, he should be setting an example for his caucus, not trying to skirt the rules," Michelle Kuppersmith, the group's executive director, said in a press release. "If he violated the gift rule, he must be held accountable."

McCarthy's office did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

But McCarthy told Fox News last week that he had "rented a room from Frank for a couple of months" — an agreement that likely violated the property's bylaws, according to the Washington Post.

"Don't worry, I'm back to — going back to where I normally am, on my couch in my office. But, yes, we pay fair market rate," he claimed.

Last Tuesday, a McCarthy spokesperson told a right-wing outlet: "McCarthy rented a room of approximately 400 square feet, and under House Ethics guidelines, calculated the fair market amount at $1,500/month by comparing what other members of Congress were also paying to live in the building and additional comparables for the space in the building and neighborhood."

But Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted Tuesday that similar spaces in Luntz's building run between $1,675 and $2,300 a month and homeowners' association fees run nearly $5,000 a month, per unit — covering the costs of a roof-top pool, round the clock concierge, and other amenities. That apparent gap would constitute a gift from Luntz to McCarthy.

These ethics allegations come as McCarthy is leading the charge to removeHouse Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney from her post as the number-three House GOP official. Her crimes: She admitted that Trump lost the 2020 election and then worked to hold him accountable for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

McCarthy, who once also acknowledged Trump's culpability for the attacks but has since reverted to being a staunch defender of the twice-impeached one-termer, is mad that Cheney has not followed his lead.

"Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it's clear that we need to make a change. As such, you should anticipate a vote on recalling the Conference Chair this Wednesday," he told his caucus on Monday.

In the past, McCarthy has occasionally tried to present himself as a defender of congressional ethics.

In 2016, he called the House Ethics Committee chair position an "important role for this institution & our country."

Citing optics, he framed himself as an opponent of an effort to gut the outside Office of Congressional Ethics in 2017.

In February 2019, he said in a press release that "Members on the Ethics Committee are charged with guarding the institution of the House of Representatives."

He has also called out Democratic colleagues who he believed crossed ethical lines, often trying to boot them from powerful positions.

Though he had not been accused of any wrongdoing, McCarthy unsuccessfully tried to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from his seat of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in March, vaguely citing classified information about Swalwell's ties to an alleged Chinese spy.

Since the 2019 impeachment inquiry, he also has repeatedly demanded Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) lose his chairmanship of the intelligence panel and called for him to be censured for accurately describing Trump's call with the Ukrainian president.

McCarthy has, thus far, not stepped aside from his position.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

‘Illegal Coordination’ Complaint Filed Against NY GOP Congressional Candidate

‘Illegal Coordination’ Complaint Filed Against NY GOP Congressional Candidate

A Washington D.C.-based watchdog group has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against Andrew Heaney, who is running for the Republican nomination in New York state’s 19th Congressional District. The complaint accuses Heaney’s campaign of illegal coordination with New York Jobs Council, a political action committee that appears to have been created by him.

The complaint, lodged by the Campaign for Accountability, focuses on a series of donations made to the NY Jobs Council, a PAC founded in June 2015, according to registration papers filed with the FEC. The committee has raised $60,000 to date, mostly during a two-week period last summer. But in financial disclosures available on the FEC website, $55,000 of those contributions have come from companies owned by Heaney or Skaggs Walsh, a fuel oil company now owned by his sister, Alison Heaney.

The National Memo reached out to the Heaney campaign for comment but so far none has been forthcoming.

Shortly after the donations were made, Heaney filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC in August, 2015. Since then, the report alleges, Heaney “almost certainly directed his companies to funnel at least $20,000 to a recently-created Washington, D.C.-based independent expenditure-only political committee called NY Jobs Council.” The committee has broadcast a total of 86 tweets, 21 of them attacking John Faso, former minority leader in the New York State Assembly and another of the Republicans currently competing for the party’s nomination in the 19th Congressional District.

“This is an obvious case where someone has some illegal coordination going on,” said Daniel Stevens, deputy director at the Campaign for Accountability. “Sure, the amount may be small, but breaking the law is breaking the law.”

The NY Jobs Council lacks a website or much description of its mission on its Twitter page, other than “supporting candidates for Congress who are dedicated to public policies that create jobs for our great state.” The committee is headed by Rob Cole, who also runs In The Field, a consulting firm that appears among a few recipients of funds filed by the NY Jobs Council. Cole, a well-known Republican political operative, heads the consulting firm with James “Jake” Menges, another Republican operative who once nearly choked a New York City Councillor in front of cameras in 1998.

Cole and Menges also run a firm called Crimson Public Affairs, and although their names or faces don’t appear on its site, the firm is registered under their names in Florida. The Heaney campaign has paid Mr. Menges and Crimson for consulting work, while NY Jobs Council has paid In the Field for consulting. In addition, both the Heaney campaign and NY Jobs Council paid the Jackson-Alvarez Group for research.

With Cole and Menges working for the Heaney for Congress campaign through Crimson Public Affairs, and NY Jobs Council through In the Field, it is difficult to determine whether or not those firms are providing NY Jobs Council with any information they also shared with the Heaney campaign.

Heaney presented himself as a small business owner who worked his way up via his family oil company in Queens. Since the Fifties his family has owned Skaggs Walsh, which donated $35,000 to the NY Jobs Council at end of June, 2015. His campaign’s biography page alludes to Skaggs Walsh without naming the company specifically. A further $20,000 came from Heaney Energy Corporation, Little Deep, and Submarine Rock, all businesses owned by Heaney, according to the Campaign for Accountability.

“There are laws against coordination and that appears to be what Heaney and the super PAC are doing,” said Stevens.

The FEC has the power to fine political parties and campaigns for violating its rules. The Ohio Republican Party was fined in mid-January for failing to disclose some $70,000 in political receipts. But with the advent of the Citizens United ruling, campaign finance laws have been hollowed out and enforcement comes late, if ever.

Yet the revelations could strengthen Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham law professor who recently announced she was running for the Democratic nomination in the 19th Congressional District. For now the local Republican nominating race looks much like the party’s presidential nominating process, complete with angry infighting and dubious practices.