(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) United States Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Herschel Walker‘s opponent, used campaign funds for a personal legal defense that predates his time in the Senate.
Warnock, a pastor before he was a senator, is being sued for events that took place before his time in office, according to Politico. Melvin Robertson has sued over the same issue before, but a federal judge dismissed the suit.
Robertson is asserting the same wrongdoing now, but this time he listed Warnock’s church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, as the defendant, reported the New York Post.
Warnock used his campaign attorneys, the Clinton-connected Elias Law Group, and another firm known as Krevolin and Hurst, to defend himself in the suit. Warnock’s campaign funds paid the attorney’s fees.
This expenditure appears to violate the regulatory rules as established by the Federal Election Commission, which has strict parameters about using campaign funds to defend oneself against legal accusations.
The FEC rules state that “litigation expenses where the candidate/officeholder was the defendant and the litigation arose directly from campaign activity or the candidate’s status as a candidate” can be paid by campaign funds. However, the FEC clearly states that “Using campaign funds for personal use is prohibited.”
Since, the lawsuit is a rehashing of a pre-political issue, Warnock seems to have violated the SEC’s rules on campaign expenditures, according to Politico.
“I don’t think his donors are giving for him to fund personal lawsuits,” Republican attorney Charles Spies told Politico, referring to Warnock’s alleged misuse of campaign money.
The Left’s legal hitman, Marc Elias (best known for cooking up the Steel Dossier, spying on President Trump, and other leftist work), defended Warnock saying, “It’s completely legal and appropriate to have used campaign funds on this legal matter, as many federal officeholders have done before. Any suggestion otherwise is completely false.”
Despite that dubious defense, even the left-leaning Politico noted that all the examples of congressmen using campaign funds to defend themselves were suits over events that occurred while the congressman was in office.
