DNC files third complaint against RFK Jr. super PAC, alleging shady fundraising practices and concealment

The Democratic National Committee this week filed another complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Robert F. Kennedy Jr.from the allied super PAC, accusing it of engaging in shady fundraising practices.

The latest complaint accuses Kennedy-linked super PAC, American Values ​​2024, of again failing to properly disclose loans and loan repayments to Gavin De Becker, owner of a private security company hired by Kennedy, in an alleged attempt to exaggerate your fundraising success and hide that the PAC’s biggest donor, Timothy Mellon, is also a big supporter of former President Trump.

“Despite what AV24 may believe, the rules apply to them. By continuing to inflate their fundraising numbers and conceal the extent to which Timothy Mellon, Donald Trump’s biggest donor, is supporting RFK’s candidacy Jr., they are not just misinterpreting election laws, they are misleading the public,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement to CBS News on Thursday.

In April, a pattern emerged after the PAC reimbursed De Becker $2 million, according to financial records, and this partial refund followed his initial $4 million contribution to the PAC in February. This is not the first time the PAC has taken this action, according to FEC filings. In 2023, the super PAC received a significant financial injection from De Becker, totaling around $10 million. But by the end of the year, $9.6 million of those funds had been returned, according to financial records.

The PAC’s financial records label these transactions as “contributions” and “refunds,” but the DNC argues that the transactions should be classified as loans.

O super PAC praised these transactions, despite repaying much of them to De Becker, saying they show that “there is real electricity and a palpable desire for change.”

The DNC alleges that these transactions are being used to cover up Mellon’s substantial participation in the super PAC.

Tony Lyons, co-founder of American Values ​​2024, told CBS News in a statement Thursday that the DNC’s complaint is “part of their concerted effort to silence and censor Bobby Kennedy, mislead the public about his views, his policies and its past.”

“We will respond officially to the FEC,” Lyons said.

Some campaign finance experts consider these transactions “very unusual.”

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, said he has “never seen anything like it.”

According to Holman, if the PAC is deliberately providing an infusion of funds only to return them later, “that is a loan, and if it is being stated as a contribution, that would be a violation of campaign finance law.”

Holman called it an “interested” agreement between Kennedy and De Becker.

“Kennedy creates a false image that there is a lot of money backing him and De Becker makes some money from it,” he added.

Andrew Mayersohn, a researcher at OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks and publishes campaign finance data, said these unusual transactions make Kennedy’s campaign appear more viable when it appears that funding is being invested in his cause rather than be borrowed.

“People actually use these individual contribution totals to evaluate campaign performance,” Mayersohn said.

This is the third FEC complaint filed by the committee. The group first filed a complaint in February, alleging that the PAC violated federal law after it announced plans to help Kennedy’s signature-gathering efforts in the key battleground states of Georgia, Arizona and Michigan in early 2024, along with funding ballot access efforts for Kennedy in five other states.

Kennedy campaign advertisementd in April, guaranteed access to the polls in Michigan. A spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State’s office confirmed that the Natural Law Party, a minor party with a place on the state’s ballot, nominated Kennedy at the party’s convention, which would allow him to skip the state’s signature-gathering process. of the Great Lake.

“We weren’t coordinating. If we had been coordinating, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Larry Sharpe, director of national organizing at American Values ​​2024. “We wanted to help with signatures because we wanted to help the campaign, and we chose states where the law said it was OK.”

The DNC told CBS News it has not received a response from the FEC regarding any of its complaints.