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NH campaign debts raise ‘ethical questions’ for Karoline Leavitt as Trump’s press secretary

photo of Karoline Leavitt speaking at a podium
Todd Bookman
/
NHPR
Karoline Leavitt during her concession speech on Election Night on Nov. 8, 2022 inside the Wentworth by the Sea Country Club.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt owes more than $325,000 in unpaid debts from her 2022 congressional campaign in New Hampshire, when she lost to incumbent Democrat Chris Pappas. New reporting and filings with the Federal Election Commission reveal she didn’t disclose that for years.

The lion's share of that debt is owed as refunds to donors who appear to have given above the legal limit. Fundraising to pay off that debt could pose a conflict of interest for Leavitt, who now works closely with President Donald Trump.

All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa spoke with Claire Heddles, political reporter for NOTUS, who broke the story.

Transcript

These debts are from when Leavitt ran for New Hampshire's first congressional district back in 2022. She lost to incumbent Democrat Chris Pappas. But what prompted you to look into the finances from that campaign?

Right. So, her campaign went [to the] FEC and refiled all of its old campaign finance records to reflect new contribution records and new refunds that are owed. And so, it's somewhat common for a campaign to have some campaign finance discrepancies, but the sort of extent of the debt and the extent of these discrepancies in her campaign are, I think, what's raising eyebrows. She owes more than a quarter million dollars. And largely it's from what appears to be illegal contributions that the campaign never should have accepted [and] shouldn't have spent. So the big sort of question is, where did all this money go?

One of the donors who gave above the legal limit, according to the records you found, was former New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson. What was his situation, and is it similar to others you encountered in your reporting?

Yes. According to the filings, what the campaign [says] is that he donated $8,700 to her campaign. Contribution limits at the time were around $3,000. So he's one of these people that the campaign reported owing debt to. But the law is for campaigns, once they're notified that they took more money than they were supposed to from someone, they're supposed to return those funds within two months. We see on the FEC records that they told the campaign years ago about some of these discrepancies. And now, two-and-a-half years later, the campaign still hasn't returned these funds that the FEC say were illegal.

So, two-and-a-half years later, do you have an idea of what might have prompted them to finally revise these filings?

Now they're working with the FEC to work out discrepancies. The FEC has sent letters to the campaign, I think 13, over the past two years, pointing out all of these problems and what appeared to be excess donations or accepting illegal business donations. So, it might be part of that process and responding to the FEC. But there was also a formal complaint by this outside group called End Citizens United. The spokespeople say that Karoline Leavitt had – the direct quote would be – that “she had no involvement or knowledge of any of these issues” and that they are working on correcting them. And they blamed it on a duplicate filing, which is a little strange considering how many amendments there have been and sort of the extent of this debt that the campaign owes.

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Could this be a conflict of interest for her in her role as press secretary?

Ethics experts that I've talked to say it sort of raises a few different ethical questions. I mean, one of them is, of course, um, how much did she know? And the campaign says this is not a product of any actual omissions by the candidate. But so there's sort of the open question of how much she knew about it. And the sort of bigger question is how she's going to pay it back. So under FEC rules, she's the only individual that can pay this $325,000 debt sort of directly. If anyone else wanted to pay it, they could only contribute within campaign finance limits. So she would need dozens of donors to be able to pay that back… if she wanted to take donations to pay back the debt. And sort of what ethics experts say is that in her new role, being so close to the president, if she were to fundraise, it would raise a lot of ethical questions around why people are giving her money and sort of what access they're expecting from that.

As the host of All Things Considered, I work to hold those in power accountable and elevate the voices of Granite Staters who are changemakers in their community, and make New Hampshire the unique state it is. What questions do you have about the people who call New Hampshire home?
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