Wednesday, February 7, 2024

NEW, UPDATE: Kari Lake AMENDS Financial Disclosure Statement To Add Trust; No Indication It's To Protect Assets From Richer

There was plenty of coverage* of the new financial disclosure statement filed with the U.S. Senate by Kari Lake. And that reporting may have prompted Lake to file her (first) AMENDED statement this past weekend.

Instead of owning ZenVideo, LLC as wife and husband, Lake and Jeffrey Halperin (her husband) actually own it - estimated to be worth between $100,000 to $250,000 - as part of their living trust.

The video production company has not earned Lake any income during the past year-plus (per the disclosure statement), and it does not appear that Lake either recently placed it in the trust nor placed it there with the intent to protect the assets from creditors. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer recently filed a defamation lawsuit against Lake regarding her statements about the elections.

The trust appears to be the type of living trust which would not be protected from judgment enforcement. Lake and her husband placed two pieces of real property into the trust in late 2021, and those documents indicate that the trust is revocable and that they are the beneficiaries. People often use such trusts as part of their estate planning.

Those properties appear to be their home and a condominium, both in the Biltmore area. While a personal home is not required to be listed in the Senate's disclosure statements, Lake does list a rental condo that she is receiving rent of between $1,250-4,165 per month. (The disclosure statement does not list it as a trust asset, and that might require a second amendment.)


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Monday, January 15, 2024

BREAKING, STOP THIS STEAL: George Santos Treasurer(?) Hiding Out After Allegedly Embezzling $50,000 From Arizona Congressional Candidate

A one-time Treasurer(?) for fraudster/expelled Congressman George Santos is apparently hiding from law enforcement after being accused of embezzling at least $50,000 from an Arizona Congressional candidate.

Walt Blackman (R-Snowflake), who is currently running to regain a seat in the Arizona Legislature, leveled the charges in a letter filed with the Federal Election Commission ("FEC") on Sunday afternoon.
I hereby formally report a series of unauthorized and illicit financial transactions within the 'Committee to Elect Walt Blackman for Congress,' masterminded by Mr. Thomas Datwyler. In a clear breach of financial protocols and without requisite approvals from our committee, Mr. Datwyler diverted campaign funds into unauthorized external accounts. He established at least one additional account and illicitly reallocated a sum of not less than $50,000 from our General Election fund to an undisclosed location.  

In addition, Mr. Datwyler knowingly issued multiple checks as refunds to general donors from accounts deficient in funds, resulting in the checks being dishonored upon presentation. This malfeasance led to non-payment to our vendors and a cascade of unsettled campaign liabilities. Given my lack of access to these implicated accounts, it is our contention that Mr. Datwyler has embezzled an estimated amount of $50,000.  

Law enforcement agencies have been notified of these infractions. The inability to locate Mr. Datwyler has temporarily hindered our ability to file a complete legal report. Upon determination of his whereabouts, it is our intention to formally lodge a complaint and initiate legal proceedings against Mr. Datwyler for the crime of theft, advocating for maximal prosecutorial action. Concurrently, civil litigation for recovery of damages will be pursued against him. 
Datwyler became Blackman's campaign treasurer shortly after he announced his intent to move from the Arizona State House of Representatives to the U.S. House in early 2021, and remained in the post through his loss in the Republican primary (to Eli Crane).

In addition to a short, disputed stint as the expelled Rep. George Santos' (R-NY) treasurer last year, Datwyler was the financial person for several other Republican candidates in 2022. At least three of them have had to pay fines to the FEC for Datwyler's actions (inactions).

Datwyler has also been active running a Super PAC in Iowa supporting Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign, and this New York Times article outlines a concerning set of connections between several political operatives.

Blackman is asking the FEC to show mercy - to him, not to Datwyler - and to waive any penalties. After raising and spending more than $1.1M, Blackman has approximately $12,000 left in his campaign account. (We cannot know for sure, because none of the required 2023 reports have yet been filed.)

Blackman, who tried to help "Stop the Steal" in 2020, is running in the wide-ranging Legislative District 7, which is currently represented by two Republican Davids, Cook and Marshall.

(Arizona's Politics has attempted to reach Blackman for comment, and will update this article as needed.)


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Monday, November 20, 2023

FACT CHECK: NRSC Gets Early Start, Launches 1st FALSE Ad of 2024 #AZSenate Campaign In Double-Negative Fashion (WATCH Ad)

With the battle for the narrative of who benefits from a three-way race for Arizona's U.S. Senate seat in 2024 raging, the Republicans are launching a double-negative attack ad bank shot against presumptive Democratic nominee Ruben Gallego and incumbent-possible-independent-candidate Kyrsten Sinema. While the attacks against Sinema are predictable ("liberal Democrat"), the NRSC lobbed FALSE invective against Gallego.

Polling is consistently showing Gallego winning the likely three-way race against former Democrat Sinema and Republican frontrunner Kari Lake. What is less clear is whether Sinema draws more from the Republican or the Democrat in such a race.

The National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) announced a digital advertisement - meaning we do not know how much money, if any, is really being spent on it - today. By knocking Sinema as a "liberal Democrat" who votes with Biden, they are trying to prevent Republicans from sliding to Sinema AND they are trying to make it more palatable for Democrat to vote for her.

The attacks on Gallego are also supposed to slide more Democrats to Sinema. However, their pickings in that category were slim.

The first attack was that he "ripped off immigrants". This laughable conclusion cites an Arizona Republic article from this past March, which details Gallego's small involvement in helping a man who was going to create a bank focusing on the needs of undocumented immigrants in the Latino community. The bank never got off the ground, and the man is repaying the six investors. Gallego did not recruit investors, according to the cited Corporation Commission Order.

The second attack was calling Gallego a "deadbeat dad". That term has a very specific definition in the public sphere as someone who has not paid their required child support. There have been no allegations by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego that her ex has ever had such an issue, and in fact, both have indicated that their parenting of their young son has been amicable.

Fact Check Conclusion: The NRSC has lobbed two FALSE accusations at Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.

The ad was first reported on and linked by Politico.


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Sunday, October 15, 2023

NEW, BAILED OUT: AZGOP Covers Bills With Late September Bailout From Waste Management Founders, Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Freedom Fund

The Arizona Republican Party received a late-September bailout from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and some of his allies. Facing a checking account balance not sufficient to cover their monthly expenses, the AZGOP received ore than $34,000 from the National Republican Senate Committee.

That was made up of $20,000 from the founders of Waste Management Inc, (Dean and Rosemarie Buntrock) and additional $5,000 checks from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (through his Bluegrass Committee), Maine Senator Susan Collins (through Dirigo PAC) and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo's Freedom Fund.

The state party's kitty was below $15,000 on September 1 - an unusually low amount for any state party committee. (Expenses in September were $55,000, although much of that was covered by transferring monies from another account.)

The AZGOP's net worth on September 30, was just $20,790 - the cash balance of $54,959 less the debts owing of $34,169.

By contrast, the Arizona Democratic Party reported a September 30 net worth of more than $770,000 (with just a couple of thousand dollars of outstanding bills).


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Thursday, July 13, 2023

WATCH: Full Debate Of Rep. Crane's "Don't Say DEI In the Military" Amendment; It was more than just "colored people" (READ Text of Amendment)

Arizona Rep. Eli Crane (R-CD2) drew national attention when he blurted out that his amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act "has nothing to do with whether or not colored people or Black people or anybody can serve, okay."

Rep. Joyce Beatty, who was handling the debate for the Democratic opposition, immediately called for the offensive term to be stricken from the record. Crane asked to amend it to "people of color", but Beatty refused and the words were removed from the record by unanimous consent.

The heated exchange came at the end of the 10-minute debate, and Crane was forceful - and occasionally, sarcastic - in arguing for his bill. He claimed that "what's divisive is that the military is becoming a political - a social - experiment, before saying he doesn't know how many Democrats served in the military.

Here is the actual text of the amendment, which the House approved later in the evening on a party-line vote. Given his remarks about "social experiment", the core purpose appears to be to prevent any training involving "diversity, equity, or inclusion". 

More of Crane's comments: "The military was never intended to be inclusive. Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards."
--"Diversity can be a great thing, but it cannot be our focus. And I'm going to tell you guys this right now: you can keep playing around these games with diversity, equity and inclusion, but there are some real threats out there. And if we keep messing around and we keep lowering our standards, it's not going to be good." 

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Friday, April 14, 2023

BREAKING: Gallego Raises $3.8M In 1st Quarter Of Senate Race, Easily Out-Raising Independent Sinema

Rep. Ruben Gallego raised $3.8M in the same period, after announcing that he would seek the Sinema-vacated Democratic nomination for next year's election. He now has $2.7M in the bank.

Gallego quickly stepped into the void and cranked up the national fundraising machine. His expenses were more than $2M, so he only added $1.4M to the cash on hand. However, the report does send a statement to both the incumbent and Republicans looking to enter the race.


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BREAKING: Sinema Sets New Fundraising PR - Rakes In More Than $2.1M In 1Q23, Including Money From New "No Labels" Party

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema was a prodigious fundraiser as a Democrat. As an Independent, she has shattered her previous fundraising PR (personal record), raking in more than $2.1M in the first three months of 2023. 

She also received a modest $10,000 in February from the No Labels PAC (the maximum they could give). They filed petition signatures to become a ballot-worthy political party on Arizona's 2024 ballot.

That $2.1M is approximately $500,000 more in total receipts than she collected in her previous record quarter (1Q22).  Approximately $252,000 is from PACs, and the rest from individuals.

(To arrive at the PAC figures, we inspected both her primary committee and her joint fundraising committee reports.)

Amazingly, Rep. Ruben Gallego raised $3.8M in the same period, after announcing that he would seek the Sinema-vacated Democratic nomination for next year's election. He now has $2.7M in the bank.

We have not yet had a chance to dig into the 870+ pages of contributions and expenses. If anything jumps out at you, please feel free to call it to our attention, Paul . Weich . AZlaw @ gmail.com (no spaces).

Below is a snapshot of today's filing, a table of her previous fundraising numbers, and the principal committee report.




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Tuesday, February 28, 2023

NEW AND FIRST: AZ Senate Leaders Met About "Hostile Behavior" In Elections Committee Weeks Before Bribery Conspiracy Theory

Democratic and Republican leaders in the Arizona State Senate met to discuss the activities in the Senate Elections Committee, weeks before Thursday's "presentation" went off the rails in pushing a vast cartel-led bribery conspiracy theory.

Arizona's Politics/Arizona's Law has verified (from two different sources) the Feb. 6 meeting between Senate President Warren Petersen and Minority Leader Raquel Teran and ranking committee member Juan Mendez. Democrats say Thursday's day-long presentation to the House and Senate Elections Committees "of course violated what Democrats had hope would come of the meeting."

The Feb. 6 meeting was requested by the two Democratic Senators after Senate Elections Committee Chair Wendy Rogers had used two successive weekly meetings to host unsworn presentations pushing unproven allegations about the 2020 and 2022 elections. They indicate that Rogers also displayed "hostile behavior" in cutting off 
Democratic members and forbidding them from speaking words like "conspiracy theory".

Calli Jones, the Communications Director for the Democratic caucus in the Senate, tells Arizona's Politics that "the continued statements throwing Representative Harris under the bus are a weak attempt to shift the blame away from Republican leadership."

Arizona's Politics has asked Senate President Petersen for responses related to the February 6 meeting and the subsequent committee meetings/presentations. We will update this article as warranted.

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