A complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center alleges that Republicans are using an obscure shell company to fund Rep. Liz Cheney’s primary challenger.
The Campaign Legal Center detailed its complaint in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:
Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that “Snow Goose, LLC,” and any unknown person(s) who made contributions to the super PAC Wyoming Values in the name of Snow Goose, LLC, violated federal campaign finance laws and deprived voters of information essential to a transparent political process.
The complaint alleges that Snow Goose was not the true source of a $50,000 contribution made in its name to Wyoming Values and that there is reason to believe that one or more unknown persons created, operated and/or made contributions to Snow Goose in order to fund Wyoming Values without disclosing their identities.
Such a scheme would violate the “straw donor” ban in the Federal Election Campaign Act, which forbids any person from making contributions in the name of another and also bars candidates and committees — including super PACs — from knowingly accepting any such contribution.
The super PAC has been active in one race. It has been opposing Liz Cheney and supporting her primary opponent Harriet Hageman.
$50,000 is a lot of money to dump into a Wyoming Republican primary from a single shady source.
“Shell companies like Snow Goose, LLC are one of the ways special interests funnel secret spending (also known as dark money) to super PACs and conceal the true contributor’s identity. Voters have a right to know who is spending that money and attempting to rig the system in their favor,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal reform at Campaign Legal Center. “Real transparency about the true sources of this type of spending will mean more government accountability and less political corruption.”
Dark money spending is a danger to US democracy. Voters don’t know where the money is coming from in Wyoming. As mentioned above, Republicans want to be rid of Cheney, who is doing patriotic work on the 1/6 Committee, so badly that they are willing to break the law to rig a primary against her.
Democrats may disagree with Liz Cheney on 99% of policy, but Rep. Cheney deserves a free and fair primary election.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association