EXCLUSIVE: GOP House Candidate Referred to DOJ for Campaign Finance Irregularities
Big problems for a Republican running in a must-win House seat for the GOP
A Republican House candidate is getting hit with a formal ethics complaint and allegations that he paid his own company for campaign work, all in the final days of the Virginia primaries.
Cameron Hamilton, who is running in an open House seat, has serious irregularities with his financial disclosures, per a report filed with both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the House’s Ethics Committee, first reported here.
READ THE FULL ETHICS COMPLAINT, FIRST REPORTED HERE
The complaint alleges that filings from Hamilton failed to disclose financial assets and sources of income, and that his ties to businesses that appear elsewhere in public records are curiously absent from what he files with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
“These multiple significant omissions appear to be more than an inadvertent oversight or an isolated occurrence,” the complaint reads. “At the same time that Mr. Hamilton filed what is essentially a blank financial disclosure report, he caused his federal campaign committee to report the receipt of more than $40,000 in loans and in-kind contributions from his personal funds and personally executed multiple corporate filings with the Commonwealth of Virginia disclosing his affiliation with three separate companies.”
Hamilton was, the complaint alleges, “aware of information that was also required to be reported on his financial disclosure, but excluded it.” The anonymous filer requests that the DOJ and House Ethics Committee “investigate whether Mr. Hamilton has made false statements” in violation of the law.
In a separation allegation, the complainant notes that Hamilton’s campaign “reported to the Federal Election Commission the receipt of more than $40,000 in contributions and loans from the personal funds of Mr. Hamilton In 2023. Yet Mr. Hamilton’s financial disclosures covering the same time period do not disclose any assets whatsoever.” In one specific instance cited, “on September 27, 2023, Hamilton for Congress reports the receipt of a $10,000 loan from the ‘personal funds of the candidate.’ Yet two weeks earlier, on September 12, 2023, Mr. Hamilton certified to the Clerk of the House that he had no reportable personal assets whatsoever.”
“Both cannot be accurate,” the complaint reads. “Either Mr. Hamilton had sufficient liquid assets to fund the $10,000 campaign loan or the funds provided to his campaign committee were not actually his personal funds and therefore an impermissible or excessive campaign contribution from another source.”
Beyond the ethics complaint, it turns out that Hamilton may also have used his donors’ money to pay his own business. These allegations were first reported by Politico, which noted that Hamilton “appears to be the latest to have left information off a key personal financial disclosure.”
Per the story:
Hamilton did not disclose two corporate positions on his latest financial disclosure — and one of them is with a company that his campaign then paid. State records show Hamilton is listed as a director or manager for two Virginia-based corporations, Onward Operations and Onward Valor. But neither company was included on a personal financial disclosure Hamilton filed last month, nor one he filed last September, shortly after he became a candidate.
Hamilton responded to Politico by saying that at least one of his affiliated LLCs was shut down last year. But, “per House ethics instructions, in accordance with federal law, candidates are required to report positions held in the year the report covers and two previous calendar years. That includes LLCs, Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center told POLITICO.”
This rationale is therefore, insufficient, at best.
Hamilton’s primary is on Tuesday. His campaign told Politico that “the voters of Virginia’s 7th are much more concerned with what Cameron will do to address Joe Biden’s open-border crisis and weak leadership.”
We’ll find out shortly.