This cycle, Antone Melton-Meaux ran for Congress in Minnesota's 5th District against incumbent Representative Ilhan Omar. His campaign raised $3.2 million in the last 3 months before the primary, where he ultimately lost by 18 points.
Before the election, he came under scrutiny for paying over $100,000 to two LLC companies which were formed in 2019. These companies had no record online or any presence in campaign filings for any other candidate. One week before the primary, the Democratic Party of Minnesota (called the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party) filed an FEC complaint against his campaign alleging he was failing to disclose donors who had contributed to the millions raised and was illegally moving money to vendors that did not exist.
Melton-Meaux's campaign also paid $1.1 million to an LLC created on May 29, 2020 for media buys and direct mail. Between this and the other two LLCs, this has accounted for 65% of his campaign expenditures going through anonymous and newly founded Delaware LLC companies. Political strategists believe this was likely to conceal the identity of the vendors actually doing work for the campaign given that the DCCC has made it a policy to blacklist any vendor that works with a primary challenger to a current incumbent.
No comments:
Post a Comment