This is probably just about the most corrupt thing I can imagine…and yet…it doesn’t actually seem to be illegal:
Photograph shows conservative activist handing slip to Darin McCann and Marlene Brady holding a similar paper
www.theguardian.com“The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.
…
Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”
Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”
…
Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor,who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.”
Now here’s the interesting part:
“Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.”
That made me realize this might not just be a Wyoming thing. Since the advent of 501c4 dark money groups, we have no idea how many of them are enmeshed with “new media” outlets aka bloggers, podcasters, TikTok influencers, etc. How many of these media outlets are just fronts for dark money groups…and how many of them are bundling contributions in “straw donor” schemes on behalf of their ‘subscribers’?