Numbers Don’t Add Up, Serious Transparency Questions Raised
Today the Huffington Post raised serious questions about how 28 year-old Republican candidate Justin Fareed has been financing his congressional campaigns in California’s 24th district.
As the Huffington Post reports, not only does the math on Fareed’s personal financial disclosure form not quite add up, his filing raises more questions than answers. And here’s the kicker: less than a week until California’s primary, Fareed’s required disclosure for his current campaign has yet to be made public. It was due almost three weeks ago.
“Republican Justin Fareed thinks the rules don’t apply to him,” said Barb Solish of the DCCC. “Voters deserve transparency from their congressional candidates, not fuzzy math and willfully ignored deadlines.”
ICYMI
Here’s The Truest Thing Donald Trump Has Said This Election [EXCERPT]
The Huffington Post
By Matt Fuller
June 1, 2016
…All these loopholes make it impossible to actually know where a politician’s money comes from.
Take, for example, the case of 27-year-old congressional candidate Justin Fareed. The Republican was aged 25 when he first ran for Congress last cycle and loaned himself nearly $200,000. Fareed had only been in the workforce for a couple of years and had made less than $100,000 in total income over that period.
The “third generation rancher“ reported in 2014 that he had six assets with a minimum worth of $153,006 and a maximum value of $396,000. After loaning himself the money, Fareed reported in 2015 that his assets had appreciated to between $217,006 and $581,000. This was while he was making $5,000 in all of 2014 and $25,000 as of May 2015.
That may raise some questions, but within the broad ranges of financial disclosure, Fareed could come close to covering the expenses of his campaign, though his campaign told The Huffington Post that the money came from regular disbursements out of his “intergenerational trust fund.”
That’s presumably listed on his financial disclosure as “Northern Trust,” but the disclosure doesn’t designate what exactly the trust is and Fareed doesn’t break out what investments are contained in that asset.
There may be some clarity in Fareed’s 2016 disclosure, which was due May 15, but he hasn’t filed it. The late fees on blowing off the disclosure will come to a whopping $200.
While such finances might raise some eyebrows, there are plenty of possible explanations that make it impossible to know where Fareed’s money came from. He co-owns a home with his parents, so he could have taken out a home equity line of credit on his personal residence, which he is not obligated to disclose. Candidates can also take loans out from a retirement account, which does not need to be disclosed and, miraculously, does not lower the reported value of the asset….