According to an infuriating though not overly surprising report in the Daily Caller, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has begun a major investigation into a sitting member of the United States Congress, Democratic Florida Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL). Rep. McCormick is accused of violating state and federal campaign finance law.
The Daily Caller reports allegations against Rep. McCormick contend that the congresswoman worked with a political consultant named Mark Goodrich since 2021, and as part of that relationship, did not report illegal, in-kind contributions made to her by an organization with ties to both her family and Mr. Goodrich.
Further, the FEC investigation into Rep. McCormick was reportedly started thanks to a legal complaint filed with it by an organization called the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation on August 11. The Coolidge-Reagan Foundation legal complaint, in turn, was based on an investigation conducted by the Office of Congressional Ethics’ (OCE).
According to the OCE and Coolidge-Reagan Foundation claims, the Daily Caller reports, “Corlie McCormick Jr. and Chantrell McCormick, the congresswoman’s husband and sister-in-law, respectively, are the registered agents of Progressive People Inc. (PPI), a Florida limited liability corporation (LLC) which gave $725,000 to Truth and Justice Inc. (TJI) in 2022.”
That organization, TJI, is a non-profit that is tax-exempt, and thus is generally not supposed to be involved directly with specific campaigns or causes. However, in this case, Mr. Goodrich was allegedly using the TJI funds to pay vendors on behalf of Rep. McCormick’s congressional campaign, which is illegal.
In its complaint, the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation alleged, in its general claim before jumping into all the specific details, “Democratic Congresswoman Shiela Cherfilus-McCormick appears to have accepted over $150,000 in illegal in-kind campaign contributions from a corporation and attempted to conceal this crime by failing to accurately report those illegal contributions. The Office of Congressional Ethics has already issued a report and findings concluding ‘there is substantial reason to believe’ Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick committed these blatant violations of federal campaign finance law.”
Commenting on that allegation and noting that a serious conspiracy appears to have been involved here, Dan Backer, the attorney filing the complaints for the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation, told the Daily Caller, “You don’t accidentally magically happen to have [multiple entities] ready to go at a moment’s notice. They’re not that quick to set up.”
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Adding to that, the lawyer for the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation explained to the media outlet that he sees the congresswoman and the constellation of figures around here of being “blatantly corrupt,” saying, “All of this was already in place. These people I think are blatantly corrupt.”
Rep. McCormick, for her part, told The Daily Caller, “The Committee on Ethics has not yet concluded its review of the allegations, and no decision has been made at this time.” She added,“As outlined in the Committee’s public statement, the referral for further review does not imply that any violation has occurred. I fully respect the process and remain committed to cooperating with the Committee as it works to bring this inquiry to a close.”
Featured image credit: By Brian Thorpe, U.S. House Photography Service – https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/06k2qj8xaldmm2ewj6m1z/Congresswoman-Sheila-Cherfilus-McCormick-Official-Portrait.jpg?rlkey=p037di66s42zzdnwlg24ytrar&e=2&st=uos75u13&dl=0, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=159583309