{"id":1267182,"date":"2022-02-02T23:52:53","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T04:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1267182"},"modified":"2022-02-02T23:52:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T04:52:59","slug":"ethics-watchdog-calls-for-fec-investigation-into-democrat-rep-marie-newman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ethics-watchdog-calls-for-fec-investigation-into-democrat-rep-marie-newman\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics Watchdog Calls for FEC Investigation into Democrat Rep. Marie Newman"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fethics-watchdog-calls-for-fec-investigation-into-democrat-rep-marie-newman%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1267182&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2022\/02\/March9-2020-Democrat-Rep-Marie-Newman-D-IL-ap-640x335.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">An ethics watchdog organization asked the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to investigate Democrat Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) for allegedly using campaign funds to bribe a possible primary opponent.<\/p>\n<p>The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a nonprofit organization founded by former President Donald Trump\u2019s once Acting Attorney General Matthew Whittaker, filed a previous ethics&nbsp;<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.factdc.org\/post\/ethics-watchdog-calls-for-investigation-into-rep-newman-for-violating-federal-law-ethics-rules\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">complaint<\/a>&nbsp;in May that prompted the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate Newman\u2019s alleged bribery.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Last month, the OCE completed its initial inquiry into the allegations against Newman. The OCE&nbsp;<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2022\/01\/25\/house-ethics-committee-investigate-democrat-rep-newman-bribing-possible-primary-opponent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found<\/a>&nbsp;\u201csubstantial reason to believe\u201d the congresswoman bribed potential primary opponent Iymen Chehade with federal employment in exchange for his promise not to challenge her in the primary election.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>FACT\u2019s latest complaint&nbsp;<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/65db7681-e755-4cff-abe7-1d9e373df4db.usrfiles.com\/ugd\/65db76_c79d865075924e4a95e647b20648e1db.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">asks<\/a>&nbsp;the FEC to \u201cinvestigate whether Newman\u2019s use of campaign funds is a legitimate campaign expense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chehade sued Newman after failing to give him the job she promised on her congressional staff. Newman then settled the lawsuit with Chehade twelve days after the OCE notified her of the ongoing investigation. In addition, campaign finance records revealed that Newman began paying Chehade a salary on July 1, just two days after the lawsuit settled.<\/p>\n<p>Chehade reportedly received a total of $54,000 since the second half of 2021. Newman paid Chehade $7,500 per month with additional $2,000 payments intermittently. However, Chehade\u2019s \u201csalary\u201d payments were disbursed on a different schedule than the rest of her campaign staff and were more than two times what Newman paid other staffers during the third quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n<p>These facts \u201cdemonstrate the payments are likely not for fair market services to the campaign,\u201d FACT\u2019s complaint&nbsp;<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/65db7681-e755-4cff-abe7-1d9e373df4db.usrfiles.com\/ugd\/65db76_c79d865075924e4a95e647b20648e1db.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">read<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Chehade refused to comply with OCE\u2019s investigation due to a nondisclosure agreement contained in the settlement agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNewman was the subject of a serious ethics investigation and by settling the lawsuit with Chehade she prevented him from testifying in the investigation and then contemporaneously began paying him salary from her campaign funds,\u201d FACT&nbsp;<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/65db7681-e755-4cff-abe7-1d9e373df4db.usrfiles.com\/ugd\/65db76_c79d865075924e4a95e647b20648e1db.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cThis clearly raises grave concerns about abuse of campaign funds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An ethics watchdog organization asked the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to investigate Democrat Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) for allegedly using campaign funds to bribe a possible primary opponent. The Foundation &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1267182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1267182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1267182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1267182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1267182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}