D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown’s 2008 at-large council campaign failed to report more than $133,000 in contributions and more than $203,000 in expenses, an audit by city investigators has found. The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance concluded that Brown’s 2008 campaign committee finance reports “do not reflect the financial activity of the committee,” according to an audit released Tuesday. The office referred numerous violations to the agency’s general counsel, who will determine whether fines should be levied against Brown.
But some officials say there’s not much the Campaign Finance Office can do about the violations.
“D.C. has watered down campaign finance laws with regard to punishment,” said former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who declined to comment further without first reviewing the audit.
Brown had no opponents in the 2008 Democratic primary and won the general election by a wide margin. His campaign raised and spent $825,000, although it only reported about $612,000 of those expenditures, the audit found. In 2010, Councilman Phil Mendelson spent less than $300,000 on his contested campaign for an at-large seat, Mendelson’s most recent finance report shows.
But Brown said Tuesday that he was determined to overwhelm all opposition in the 2008 race. “When you talk about Kwame Brown and talk about how we campaign, we are the best ground operation this city has ever seen, ” Brown said.
An OCF review of revisions Brown provided to auditors found that Brown’s campaign was able to account for the 53 unreported expenditures totaling nearly $203,000 and 221 unreported contributions totaling more than $133,000. The audit said that does not clear Brown of the violations.
“Administrative errors were made, and I take full responsibility,” Brown said.
Key among the audit’s findings was that Brown’s 2008 campaign paid a company owned by Charles Hawkins — the treasurer of Brown’s 2004 campaign ?– nearly $400,000 to help Brown get out the vote for the 2008 Democratic primary and general election. Banner Consulting in turn paid Partners in Learning, a company owned by Brown’s brother Che Brown, nearly $240,000 to provide the same services Banner was hired to perform. A list of unreported expenditures made available by Kwame Brown shows at least $65,000 of the cash Brown’s campaign paid Banner went unreported.
“We started off with Banner, and then Banner said there was a little bit more work than it could do and Banner went out and got Partners in Learning to help execute the contract,” Kwame Brown told The Washington Examiner.
Brown’s campaign signed a contract with Banner on June 1, 2007, the audit said. That same day, Banner hired Che Brown’s company. According to the audit, Banner wasn’t incorporated until July 26, 2007 — nearly two months after it signed the contract with Kwame Brown — and disbanded on May 18, 2009. The audit says payments to Banner were typically followed by payments of the same amount from Banner to Partners in Learning, and sometimes on the same day. Che Brown’s company made nearly $26,000 in profit from the deal, the audit found.
