I shall first put in a modest plug. If you want to show you appreciate what I am doing, and if you agree with my petition to the Judicial Committee over the Harlos issue, please consider signing the petition, which you can find on JotForm at https://www.jotform.com/242868268003056 .
Now, consider the new LNC report to the FEC, covering what the LNC did in September.
Where did the money come from? For October, total LNC income for the month came to $926,090.
There were individual contributions. Itemized contributions from individuals came to $25,947. Unitemized contributions came to $30,441, for a total of $56,388. Historically, for the September of a Presidential election year, this number has often been several times as high.
Money flowed around due to the Kennedy Victory Fund. The net total income from Affiliated/Other Party Committees to the LNC included transfers from the Kennedy Victory Fund and the Libertarian Parties of Connecticut, Michigan, Nebraska, and Montana, and the Unified Libertarians of Massachusetts, for a total of $869,620. The money was largely spent as the Kennedy campaign directed and is not reported here.
Also reported on FEC form A were JFA Contributions of $726,668 and Participant Transfers of $748,615, but these did not add to Party income for the month.
Where did this money go? The answers are found on FEC Form B.
On the 2024 and 2026 National Conventions, the LNC spent $321,141, of which $40,000 was the deposit on the 2026 facility in Grand Rapids.
The LNC has five employees. Their take home pay totalled $17,495. Social Security was $2744. Health insurance was $2501. PA Witholding was $1803. Federal Witholding came to $1538. 401K contributions were $1372. Medicare was $641. Liability insurance was $246. Travel expenses included $268 for the Miami hotel. Colorado Withholding was $186. A per diem flat payment was $180.
The PayRoll Fee to FlexChex was $1643. Directors and Officers Insurance cost $509.
We do politics. $25,783 was spent on ballot access. $3000 went to Voter Gravity for candidate support. $62 was transferred to the Alaska affiliate.
There are outside consultants. Michael Heise was paid $2400 for Outreach and Activism Expense. CRM consulting came to $8611.The Party’s Counsel and Octillo Law were paid $5097. Web and IT consulting were $4200. The FEC consultant was paid $2000. A fundraising consultant was paid $450. For fundraising consulting, Black Flame media received $448.
The LNC does fundraising. Freedom Calls received $4000 for telemarketing. Fundraising merchandise cost $2801. Postage and Shipping cost $2217. General fundraising expenses were $250.
There is an office. The property tax on the office was $608. Telephone and data services were $428. Maintenance and cleaning was $85 to one firm and $210 to another. $65 was spent on utilities, apparently for the Office.
The LNC handles money. Outside Accounting services came to $3037. Credit Card fees came to $2938. A credit card payment came to $648. A corporate account analysis charge came to $248. A Bank Fee was $169.
A subscription to Muck Rack cost $5000. Software, hardware, and IT came to $2995. The largest part of this was $1550 to Zoho. Historical Preservation cost $400. A miscellaneous expense was $32 to Udemy.
And finally, $487,646 went back to Kennedy campaign expenses.
How much do we owe? Debts at the end of September came to $383,341. The two large debts were $40,000 to Freedom Calls for fundraising and $290,000 to the convention hotel. The hotel debt was paid off as the month ended. Marketing, advertising, and communications debts amounted to $7016. Technology debts included $876 for CiviCRM and campaign support and $2808 for IT consulting. The credit card debt at the end of the month was $42,641. Debts identified as being Kennedy Victory Fund related came to $59,226.
Looking at FEC reports this morning there are a lot of payments from the LNC to the Colorado Secretary of State. Fir any firmer LNC members is this a common thing or is it odd that the Narional party is dealing with the SOS of a state affiliate that is attempting to practice autonomy. There is a lot that smells fishy however this and the numerous consulting fees being paid to people who I tried to teach things to when they first entered the party (and they never learned by the way). It feels like the MC is just trying fo suck as much money from the party for their friends as they can.
Adrian Will as he told me he and Angela already planned to lay all the blame on Redpath. I told you this. Removing Redpath and Rutherford was planned within six weeks of convention.
Unfortunately, unless it was in writing and can be proven to have been sent by him, it is just hearsay. That does not mean that I don’t believe you.
There is clearly something going wrong and the latest error almost had to have been intentional. These are electronic filings and according to my sources the software takes the previous period ending cash balance as the current period starting cash balance. So someone likely changed the value.
It almost looks like intentional fraud. I know that others who are much more knowledgeable of the data are investigating. I’m not actually investigating anything. I just reported public information.
Just noticed there was a second letter, way down in the list but also sent 10/28 with a response required by 12/2. This one is for the July report covering June.
Again, from the letter:
– Your amended report discloses an increase in debts owed to one or more
vendors totaling $10,551.69 from the amounts disclosed on your original report.
Please amend your report or provide clarifying information as to why this
activity was not disclosed on your original report. (11 CFR § 104.3)
Getting one letter is concerning. Two on the same day should be setting off alarm bells. Remember, there is still October coming and that one won’t be pretty…
He looks! He notices! Great catch, Stewart!
There is an old saying: garbage in, garbage out.
The data to create these reports comes from the records kept internally within the organization. Yes, the treasurer is the one “legally responsible”, but my guess is that this garbage was generated by incompetent or uncaring staff.
Take a look at the page on their website listing staff. With a few exceptions, it looks like a row of mug shots. And of course, click on anything and you usually get a 404 error.
My concern is that the treasurer will be framed and thrown under the bus over this. They have already indicated that they are going to take him out next.
They are hiding something. What is it?
The FEC just sent the LNC a letter 10/28, with a response required by 12/2, over the amended September report covering the month of August.
From the letter:
– Your amended report discloses increase in debts owed to one or more vendors
totaling $83,998.40 from the amounts disclosed on your original report. Please
amend your report or provide clarifying information as to why this activity was
not disclosed on your original report. (11 CFR § 104.3)
They just finished looking at September’s report, so I would guess it is going to take them a few more weeks before they discover the cash balance error in October’s reports.
And so it begins…
Yet they still can’t get Life Membership cards sent out two years after the fact…
Stewart Flood is correct.
Cash on hand numbers:
9/30 $498,419
10/1 $370,503
Those two numbers should be the same. They are not.
The question of course is this: was the error in the September report, in which case September was potentially a ~$130,000 worse position than reported, or was the error in the October report, which would show a significantly higher burn rate for the current month — assuming the ending cash on hand is accurate.
And how can anyone filing these reports not have verified that these matched? Starting and ending cash on hand are the first set of numbers I look at when I check out what a campaign or party is doing.
The clue to me that led me to look at the original reports was your two articles. It just didn’t add up. As usual, thank you for the excellent reporting.
I’m not interested in libertarian internal minutiae, but in general application only, those two numbers should be the same UNLESS a major expenditure happens to have been made that day, or am I misunderstanding political accounting? In business and personal accounting, the first and last days of a month, and especially of a quarter, are logical times to make major payments.
I’d be on even shakier ground speculating what those payments could be, but despite not even wanting to know, casually reading your site brings several suggestions to mind, such as settling remaining hotel bills from your national convention or money’s disbursed back and forth with the Kennedy joint fundraising agreement thing (no, I do not know or want to know exactly how that works, this is just a guess, and just skip this paragraph if publishing the first paragraph can only happen if you do). In past presidential years I might have also guessed settling up with ballot access petition companies, but my again very sketchy impression from skimming your blog is that the national committee didn’t fund as much of that this time as was past practice.
I could be wildly off – it could have been something else entirely, or, as you apparently suggest, a large accounting error as yet to be rectified.
Even if you made an expenditure on the first day of the reporting period, you would have to record it somewhere as an expenditure.
In accounting, whether political or not, the ending cash balance of one reporting period always equals the starting balance of the next. It has to.
And we are talking about nearly $130,000 in cash. This is not a small error. It could be a single entry or multiple entries, but something is not being reported correctly.
I sometimes look at the actual reports myself. Something didn’t quite add up in my mind, so I looked at the ending cash on hand from September and the beginning cash on hand from the Mid October filing.
I believe there is a significant difference. You may want to investigate…