Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has helped raise money for political operatives in Washington that conservatives are now accusing of misleading donors, Politico reported Tuesday.
The interior secretary, formerly a Republican congressman from Montana, has donated to groups linked to Scott Mackenzie. Mackenzie runs a Virgin Islands GOP political action committee that hosted Zinke at a fundraiser in March.
Many Republicans have stopped associating with Mackenzie, an investigation by Politico found, because critics say he operates “scam PACs” that generate small donations from conservative voters, and spend the money on overhead and consultants.
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed and won a lawsuit accusing Mackenzie and others of running a “national fundraising scam.”
But Zinke has continued his relationship with firms linked to Mackenzie.
Republican Rep. Will Hurd, of Texas, said many of Mackenzie’s firms “are preying on seniors.”
Kimberly Bellissimo, the CEO for one of the firms called ForthRight, introduced Zinke to the VIGOP scam PAC in 2015 while visiting the Virgin Islands.
Zinke increased his spending on firms connected to ForthRight during his first race for Montana’s sole House seat in 2014. He continued the same relationship on his re-election two years later, spending $3 million on direct mail fundraising firms that operated from the same address as ForthRight. Zinke provided a testimonial for the ForthRight website praising the “professional as well as personal relationship we have developed over many years.”
The direct mailing campaign was coordinated between his campaign committee and his political action committee called SEAL PAC, but there is no eveidence showing Zinke did anything illegal.
But the relationship with the consultants and PACs is raising eyebrows, Politico reports, citing Karl Sandstrom, a former Democratic member of the Federal Election Commission.
“To say the least, this is highly unusual,” he said.
Sandstrom is now at the law firm Perkins Coie.
The revelations come as Zinke is facing investigations by the Interior Department’s internal watchdog and the independent Office of Special Counsel for actions that seem to mix politics and official business, such as the use of private chartered flights to speak with a professional sports team in Las Vegas.
Zinke called the media reports over his use of private, non-commercial aircraft a “little B.S.,” just before Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned for spending $1 million on private flights in a matter of a few months.
