| A bombshell investigation from POLITICO reveals that Mike Lawler personally directed nonprofits, lobbying groups, and party committees that pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Checkmate Strategies, a political consulting firm he co-founded and co-owned even while a Member of Congress.
Late last year, Lawler was caught red-handed for funneling over $500,000 in campaign cash from his own Assembly and Congressional runs to his firm, potentially padding his own pockets by hiring Checkmate to work on his campaigns while maintaining ownership in the company.
The newly uncovered payments span a network of organizations Lawler personally led:
- New Yorkers for Affordable Energy — a natural gas advocacy group Lawler directed and personally lobbied for — paid Checkmate $97,000 for lobbying in 2019 and 2020.
- 17 Forward 86, an economic development group Lawler led, paid Checkmate $95,000 for lobbying over the same period.
- The Orangetown Republican Committee, which Lawler chaired from 2017 to 2022, paid Checkmate over $26,000 for mailers and consulting in 2019 and 2021.
REMINDER: Lawler said Donald Trump should forgo any profit he makes while serving as President in 2016 and argued that “no one should profit from serving in public office.” A decade later, he’s been exposed for doing exactly that.
DCCC Spokesperson Riya Vashi:
“Mike Lawler is a corrupt self-dealer who’s spent his entire career figuring out how to turn public service into his own personal payday. While Hudson Valley families struggle with rising costs, their congressman has been busy routing money from nonprofits, lobbying groups, and party committees straight back to his own firm. Lawler doesn’t work for the Hudson Valley. He works for himself — and NY-17 voters know it.”
 Read the disqualifying reporting for yourself:
- Advocacy and political groups controlled by Rep. Mike Lawler paid more than $720,000 to the political consulting firm he co-founded, a comprehensive review of public records by POLITICO shows.
- The arrangement […] raises conflict of interest questions from his past as the Republican House member seeks reelection in one of the most competitive battleground seats in the country.
- POLITICO has previously reported that Lawler’s campaigns paid his former firm $500,000 for campaign services. A new analysis of other campaign finance and lobbying records shows that in addition to those payments, before entering Congress, Lawler directed a host of organizations that paid a combined total of at least $221,515 to Checkmate for its services between 2019 and 2021.
- Before his time in the House, Lawler honed his skills as an operative working as a lobbyist, political consultant and party boss. But the lines between the three roles often blurred together — a reality that now poses a political liability as Democrats eye his suburban congressional seat as a prime pickup opportunity this year.
- When Lawler served as director of the natural gas advocacy group New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, it paid Checkmate Strategies $97,000 to lobby for it in 2019 and 2020, with Lawler listed as the group’s individual lobbyist.
- When he led the economic development group 17 Forward 86, the organization paid Checkmate $95,000 for lobbying over the same time period.
- And when Lawler was chair of the Orangetown Republican Committee, it paid Checkmate over $26,000 for campaign mailers and consulting in 2019 and 2021.
- Government watchdog groups suggested the payments to Lawler’s former political firm from the organizations he directed were improper and called for such financial arrangements to be prohibited.
- Republican candidates in Orangetown also paid Checkmate thousands of dollars for campaign services. Around the same time, Lawler’s Orangetown Republican Committee expressed public support for those same candidates.
- In addition to his former role as chairman of the Orangetown Republican committee, Lawler serves as chairman of the Rockland County Republican Party, giving him outsize power over candidates in town elections around New York’s Hudson Valley.
- Last spring, the Rockland Republican Party held its annual Lincoln Day Victory Ball. […] Committee filings show one business and one labor group donated to the county party in connection to the fundraiser — two groups federal candidates are not permitted to solicit contributions from.
- Contributions to the Rockland County Republican Party from the day of the fundraiser were first filed in the county party’s housekeeping account, according to filings with the state board of elections. But four months later, the Rockland County Republican Party amended its financial filings to record donations from that fundraiser under the party’s main campaign account. The county party also removed records of contributions from the day of the fundraiser from its housekeeping account.
- Contributions to housekeeping accounts can be unlimited, but funds in housekeeping accounts may only be used for expenditures unrelated to “the express purpose of promoting the candidacy of specific candidates.” […] Lawler’s campaign refused to say whether he told fundraiser attendees he wasn’t soliciting contributions outside of federal rules.
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