GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump has made a controversial choice about who will run his Colorado campaign. The real estate mogul named veteran political consultant Patrick Davis as his chief director in the Centennial State on Tuesday.
GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump picked Patrick Davis to run his Colorado campaign.
The problem being that Davis was accused of committing super PAC fraud in March 2015...
The political action committee in question was Vote2ReduceDebt. Davis ran it during the 2014 midterm election.
But Vote2ReduceDebt executive Randy Hill raised the flag about Patrick Davis' modus operandi.
You see, Hill found some of the consultant's charges suspect. He alleged last March that Davis was defrauding the super PAC by not turning in receipts and overcharging the committee for various expenses. For example, the super PAC was billed for an Iowa hotel stay that had already been prepaid, reported The Dakota Free Press on March 20, 2015. And there was another bill for a plane ticket filed by Davis even though the consultant had driven to his destination.
Hill also questioned whether events organized by Davis were legitimate. For example, at one Iowa phone bank, a caller admitted they were just pretending to make phone calls for the benefit of the campaign's video cameras, Dakota Free Press reported.
But the story gets even crazier from there...
Super PAC Cross... and Double-Cross
While Vote2ReduceDebt eventually collapsed amid Hill's allegations, Patrick Davis eventually won in the end.
That's because as it turns out, Hill was a super PAC fraudster himself...
You see, before going public with his concerns about how Davis ran V2RD, Hill had approached Davis with a "trade" of sorts. In exchange for keeping quiet about the super PAC scheme, Hill said he would:
- Make Davis a character in his reality TV show
- Require $4 million from the V2DF super PAC, on the promise that half a million would go toward legitimate promotions while the rest would go to starting his own NASCAR team
Davis reported Hill's proposition to fellow V2DF overseers. Hill got canned.
Now, Davis has been charged with helping Trump win the state of Colorado - which isn't going to be an easy task. Remember, the billionaire businessman essentially snubbed the state during the primaries. For that, he paid a steep price - all 34 of its national delegates went to former presidential rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Luckily, with his super PAC experience, Davis knows the "ins" and "outs" of manipulating the system, which apparently isn't hard to do where super PACs are concerned...
For Super PACs, Any Rule Is One Rule Too Many
According to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010, companies that do business with the federal government are banned from donating to super PACs.
But ignoring that ban has become the new political trend...
Not surprisingly, super PACs supporting both Republicans and Democrats are shirking Uncle Sam's election laws left and right. Here's a look at how they're getting away with it...
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