While we wait for the Committee to Elect House Republicans (CTEHR) to explain where nearly 170,000.00 dollars went between 2022 and 2024, other related matters require our attention. Let me preface with this. If you are married, it is not a good look if you are seen frequently in public in the private company of single women without your wife. It doesn’t prove anything specifically, but it creates a perception of impropriety and lends itself to rumors that might be more damaging than the truth.
Mike Pence, for all his flaws, made it a habit to ensure his wife was with him if he had to meet with a woman or women, especially for lunch or dinner. He was mocked for this, but I see the sense because perception matters in life and politics.
Not very long ago, the Hon. Leah Cushman shared some “thoughts” about majority leader Jason Osborne (the CTEHR, thing mentioned above), as well as Reps Ross Berry and Joe Sweeney. Berry is alleged to have been paid nearly 29,000.00 dollars for text messaging services – at what appears to be an inflated per-text rate.
Two problems. First, the CTEHR should not be paying another rep closely associated with leadership or the people writing the checks for any services. Period. It looks like money laundering. It does. Second, if the cost per text is significantly higher than the industry average, as suggested, it becomes money laundering.
It also begs the question: did Berry sell this text advertising service to any other “campaign” at any other rate, or does Section 664:16 not apply to text “ads”? It doesn’t mention them, but perhaps we need to look into that.
There is also the matter of incompetence. Who decided to pay more (if true) for a service that is clearly available at a lower rate? If it is not a payoff, kickback, or money laundering to a connected insider, is it evidence of fiscal ineptitude, and why would anyone donate to a PAC that wastes their money unnecessarily?
Leah’s ‘tweet’ also included details, which we’ve received from other sources, asking why the CTEHR paid an administratively dissolved company roughly 10,000 dollars for advertising services.
Joe Sweeney’s ‘My Creations LLC’ is documented as having been dissolved in July of 2022, but in 2023, according to an election law complaint, the company received payments from the CTEHR totaling 10,250.00 dollars.
Sweeney, also a member of leadership, appears to be benefiting financially from his relationship, which looks bad even if the money were funneled to an active business. Leadership should not be paying leadership for services.
Funneling donor money to a dissolved business begs us to ask just how stupid or arrogant someone must be to think they can dismiss concerns about the transaction’s legitimacy under these circumstances.
The perception, separate from any reality, is ugly and unpleasant. Therefore, you deserve all umbrage, speculation, or accusation, if for no other reason than for behaving like dopes with no sense or propriety.
Neither Berry nor Sweeney should be receiving money from the CTEHR for any service, but they did, so here we are, expected to ignore it and not dare to suggest that this is precisely what it looks like.
Cushman’s tweet also includes a reference indicating that Facebook has no record of ads placed by My Creations LLC. I’m unfamiliar with the resource, but since we’re talking about perception, I do not think it makes things look better. Sweeney was paid for ads by the CTEHR that people who’d like to find them can’t locate.
As with the missing 169,000.00+ dollars from the CTEHR financial disclosures, the solution is to produce the receipts. Evidence. Refusing or stalling makes you look guilty as charged. Not having them makes you look sloppy and incompetent. And all of this could have been avoided if perception and propriety took precedence over whatever this is.
