Serious Allegations of Illegal Straw Donation From Meijer Camp Roil MI-03 Race

Yesterday, the independent, nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group, Campaign Legal Center, filed a complaint alleging an illegal straw donation to Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a Republican super PAC, which is spending to elect Peter Meijer in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District.

The timeline:

• On September 28, Montcalm LLC was incorporated in Grand Rapids with the as the same mailing address as The Meijer Foundation.
• On October 8, Montcalm LLC gave $150,000 to Congressional Leadership Fund.
• On October 9, CLF began spending money in MI-03.

Creating a LLC with the purpose of disguising a campaign donor is a violation of federal election law, and can result in prison time – the Campaign Legal Center noted the parallels to campaign finance violations by Lev Parnas and Igor Forman, two Trump associates who were arrested earlier this year by federal agents following a similar complaint for the same practice.

Key Points from MLive’s Brian McVicar:

Watchdog group alleges Grand Rapids LLC was created to disguise money targeting West Michigan congressional race

• A campaign finance watchdog group has filed a complaint against a Grand Rapids-based company that it says was created to hide the identity of individuals who funded a $150,000 donation to a Republican super PAC opposing Democratic candidate Hillary Scholten.
• The complaint targets Montcalm LLC, which was incorporated on Sept. 28 and, less than two weeks later, provided the Congressional Leadership Fund with $150,000. The Congressional Leadership fund is focused on helping Republicans win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• FEC records detailing the donation list Montcalm LLC’s address as 80 Ottawa Ave. NW, suite 101. That is the same address as The Meijer Foundation/Greenville Partners, LLC.
• “What appears to have happened here is this Montcalm LLC was set up and created for the purpose of disguising the identity of the true donor to Congressional Leadership Fund,” Fischer said. “The reason we reached that conclusion is there was less than two weeks between the creation of this LLC and the donation to the super PAC.” He said beyond the documents filed with the state of Michigan to create Montcalm LLC, there “is no public record of this group at all.”
• “The group does not have a website, does not have a Facebook page,” he said. “There is no record of the entity existing in business records. It’s not registered with the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, for example. Which suggests it had no independent sources of revenue” and was not “legitimately generating income that it could have used to finance the super PAC contribution.”
• The Meijer Foundation/Greenville Partners, LLC could not be reached for comment. No one answered when a reporter knocked on the door of the organization’s office…
• In its complaint to the FEC, the Campaign Legal Center says that one day after Montcalm LLC made its $150,000 donation to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the group “began making independent expenditures in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional district opposing candidate Hillary Scholten, who is running against Peter Meijer.”

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