ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is suing a conservative political action committee that he says raised massive amounts of money invoking his name in email solicitations despite giving only a pittance to his actual campaign.
The lawsuit alleges that an Arlington-based PAC called Conservative StrikeForce raised $2.2 million in 2013, largely by promising donors the money would help Cuccinelli in his ultimately unsuccessful Virginia campaign against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
But the group only gave $10,000 to Cuccinelli, and only $17,000 total to political candidates in the final six months of 2013.
The StrikeForce PAC “engaged in a national fundraising scam aimed at small donors supportive of Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign,” according to the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
Cuccinelli suspects that the bulk of the $2.2 million raised by Conservative StrikeForce was in response to solicitations made invoking his name, given that 2013 is an off-year for national elections and the Cuccinelli-McAuliffe campaign drew lots of national attention.
The PAC’s lawyer, Mark Braden, said solicitations on behalf of Cuccinelli accounted only for a tiny fraction of the money that the PAC raised in 2013. Braden said it was Cuccinelli’s campaign that first approached the PAC, and that the PAC gave Cuccinelli’s campaign everything it netted in its solicitations but that Cuccinelli was simply not popular with donors.
“Cuccinelli was not a particularly easy person to raise money for,” Braden said.
Campaign-finance records, meanwhile, show that the StrikeForce PAC paid more than $170,000 in consulting fees in 2013 to a firm that lists StrikeForce PAC chairman Dennis Whitfield as a senior advisor. Cuccinelli’s lawsuit describes the StrikeForce PAC as being “controlled by” the consulting group, Strategic Campaign Group Inc., also based in Arlington.
Braden said he did not know the specifics about the financial dealings between the PAC and the consulting group, but said, “Am I surprised that people get paid to run political committees? No.”
Braden also said the StrikeForce PAC is set up primarily to help federal candidates, so it’s hardly surprising that it did not provide large amounts of money to candidates in 2013.
In its email solicitations, the StrikeForce PAC promised donors that money they gave would help the Cuccinelli campaign. One email, sent Sept. 30, tells donors that they are close to meeting their goal of raising $50,000 to support Cuccinelli.
“Conservative StrikeForce has promised to raise $50,000 to support Ken Cuccinelli by tomorrow night,” the email states. “Unfortunately, unless you make a generous contribution now, we will fall short of that goal. … Now, we are in big trouble. We have only one day left, and we must raise $11,595.”
Braden, who said he had not yet been served with the lawsuit, said he couldn’t comment on specific figures mentioned in emails.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, payable to Cuccinelli’s campaign, on counts of false advertising and unauthorized use of Cuccinelli’s name, as well as an injunction barring the PAC from soliciting further funds from those who donated in response to the emails.
