DOJ Opens Investigation Into GOP Rep. Ross Spano For Alleged Campaign Finance Violations

UNITED STATES - MAY 23: Rep. Ross Spano, R-Fla., makes his way to the Capitol for the last votes of the week on Thursday, May 23, 2019. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Rep. Ross Spano (R-FL) makes his way to the Capitol for the last votes of the week on Thursday, May 23, 2019. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
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An announcement by the House Ethics Committee on Thursday revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Rep. Ross Spano (R-FL) for allegedly violating campaign finance laws.

House Ethics Committee Chair Ted Lieu (D-CA) and ranking member Kenny Marchant (R-TX) released a statement announcing that the DOJ had asked the committee to defer its investigation into Spano to the department.

Spano said in an official response that he plans to “cooperate fully with the Justice Department on this matter.”

“As I’ve said before, we acknowledged that mistakes were made with respect to the campaign loans, but those mistakes were completely inadvertent and unintentional,” he said.

During the 2018 midterms, the Tampa Bay Times reported that then-candidate Spano had declined to file a mandatory personal finance disclosure form until the Sunday before the elections on November 6.

The form revealed that Spano had received large loans from friends at around the same time he had funneled over $100,000 into his campaign, which he had claimed came from his “personal funds.” Though the form didn’t provide exact dollar amounts, the disclosed ranges of the loan sizes indicated that they were significant.

After winning the election, Spano submitted a filing with the FEC in December stating that he had borrowed $180,000 from two friends, and then he had lent $167,000 to his campaign.

After making the filing public, Spano admitted that he “may have been in violation” of campaign finance laws.

Read the press release below:

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Notable Replies

  1. Process crime, nothing to see here, just keep moving.

    Now if he had worn a tan suit, and ate hot dog with fancy mustard then that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

  2. OT:

    Trump is demanding that South Korea pay roughly 500% more in 2020 to cover the cost of keeping US troops on the peninsula, a congressional aide and an administration official confirmed to CNN.

    The price hike has frustrated Pentagon officials and deeply concerned Republican and Democratic lawmakers, according to military officials and congressional aides. It has angered and unnerved Seoul, where leaders are questioning US commitment to their alliance and wondering whether Trump will pull US forces if they don’t pay up.

    “Nothing says I love you like a shakedown,” said Vipin Narang, an associate professor at MIT who follows the Korean peninsula, summarizing South Korean uncertainty about the US.

    Trump is doing his best to further destabilize our allies and kowtow to the tiny tyrant Kim Fat. He sure is acting like a Russian asset.

  3. If it looks like one, and talks like one, and acts like one, and does only things that one would do…

  4. House Ethics Committee Chair Ted Lieu (D-CA) and ranking member Kenny Marchant (R-TX) released a statement announcing that the DOJ had asked the committee to defer its investigation into Spano to the department.

    Here’s what we’ve finally come to. My first reaction is that the Bill Barr DOJ is trying to ward off the House Ethics Committee so that they can simply bury this. DOJ will come back two years from now to tell us that there’s no problem.

  5. An announcement by the House Ethics Committee on Thursday revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Rep. Ross Spano (R-FL)

    “Corruption. It’s all corruption.”
    Today’s GOP: where felony investigations have overtaken the desire to spend more time with their families as the primary cause of retirement.

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