WASHINGTON — A campaign finance watchdog group filed a complaint against former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, alleging he improperly spent more than $100,000 on his U.S. Senate campaign.
The complaint, filed by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, focuses on the gubernatorial campaign account that Greitens used after he resigned in 2018, following allegations of sexual assault and blackmail, and before he had officially declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.
According to federal law, candidates cannot use money they’ve raised for a state election on a federal campaign.
“While Greitens’ 2022 Senate campaign may only accept contributions of up to $2,900 per individual and, importantly, cannot receive corporate funds, his gubernatorial campaign raised dozens of contributions far exceeding that amount — some as much as $100,000 and above,” said Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform for the Campaign Legal Center.
“Senate candidates cannot quietly finance their campaign with six-figure and corporate contributions.”
Greitens paid his campaign manager, Dylan Johnson, $54,747 between March of 2019 and October of 2020, according to the complaint, which is based on public campaign finance data. He also retained advertising groups, website designers and a public relations firm through 2020.
In 2021, Greitens paid Johnson’s Washington, D.C., firm for “strategic consulting” and a public relations firm that specializes in booking guests on cable news shows — shortly before he announced on Fox News that he was running for the Senate on March 22.
Under federal law, someone becomes a candidate if they raise or spend more than $5,000. However, they can use a process called “testing the waters” to raise and spend without officially declaring their candidacy. Once a candidacy is official, the campaign must disclose donors and expenditures from the testing the waters period.
The complaint alleges that because Greitens used money to promote his candidacy before officially entering the race, he was “testing the waters” and therefore obligated to report what he raised and spent to the FEC. The complaint also asserts that some of the contributions were more than the $2,900 maximum the FEC allows in an election.
However, Greitens has filed paperwork with the Missouri Ethics Commission declaring that he’s a potential candidate for governor in 2024. Under Missouri rules, that means he can draw from his gubernatorial campaign fund, so long as he can prove the money was spent on promoting a potential candidacy for statewide office.
The group also alleges that Greitens made an illegal in-kind donation at the beginning of his campaign by using nonfederal funds for a federal race.
The Kansas City Star previously reported that Greitens made an in-kind contribution of $18,000 for his website, marking the majority of his fundraising in the first quarter of his Senate campaign. The complaint alleges that the money may have come from Greiten’s state campaign, since he spent a little more than $18,000 on a website redesign in 2020.
Still, Greitens is unlikely to face consequences from the Federal Elections Commission. The punishment ranges from a warning to an unspecified fine from the federal agency, which has been notoriously defanged by Congress over the years.
Greitens has a history of propping up his campaigns through dark money groups. In 2020, Greitens was fined $178,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission for two campaign finance violations. In an agreement with the commission, if he paid $38,000 and committed no more campaign finance violations, the rest of the money would be forgiven.
In his 2022 Senate race, Greitens has continued to rely on PACs and joint fundraising committees, which serve as a way for a candidate to get bigger contributions from donors. About 22 percent of the money he’s raised has come through transfers from other committees.
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