Failed congressional candidate Karoline Leavitt is the youngest White House press secretary in history, and it shows. In amended filings, Leavitt revealed on Thursday that her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign owes more than $300,000 in unpaid debts. However, Leavitt failed to disclose those debts for years, showing that her campaign received hundreds of thousands of dollars in inappropriate donations and never paid the money back. It’s illegal to stiff your donors.
NOTUS reports:
The vast majority of that debt, about $200,000, is owed as refunds to contributors who appear to have donated above the legal limits. Those excessive contributions went unreported for years — until Thursday — when Leavitt’s campaign amended every campaign filing she had ever made with the Federal Election Commission.
Congressional candidates can technically accept campaign donations exceeding contribution limits — as long as they refund the contributor or redesignate the funds within 60 days, according to federal campaign finance law.
Leavitt’s campaign committee appears to have done neither.
Her congressional campaign committee amended 17 campaign finance reports on Thursday, noting that, over the course of three years, Leavitt took in a number of excessive contributions that she failed to report and has failed to pay back, essentially stiffing her donors.
This is nothing new for the 27-year-old:
The newly disclosed excessive donations essentially triples Leavitt’s campaign debt, bringing the total to $326,370 owed to vendors and contributors. (Leavitt had previously reported $105,605 in debt in a filing at the end of September 2024.)
For example, one donor — former New Hampshire governor Craig Benson — donated $8,700 to Leavitt’s campaign ahead of the 2022 general election, according to finance records. Campaign contribution limits were $2,900 per election at the time, and the newly filed records show Leavitt’s campaign still owes him a refund, more than two years later.
The excessive donor issue isn’t exactly new for Leavitt. In 2022, campaign finance group End Citizens United made a complaint to the FEC alleging that Leavitt’s campaign and its treasurer violated federal campaign finance laws by illegally accepting contributions over the legal limits and failing to refund the donations.
In a statement to NOTUS, End Citizens United spokesperson Bawadden Sayed said Leavitt’s amended reports “clearly show that the complaint we filed with the FEC was correct.”
“She took excessive contributions, which is against the law, and is just now reporting them — two years later. She ignored this violation until it became politically inconvenient, only addressing it because she’s in the public eye and under greater scrutiny,” Sayed said.
She’s trying to cover this up over her new role as Donald’s White House Press liar:
But the new records released Thursday reveal a far more widespread pattern of accepting contributions over the legal limit, and they underscore how severely Leavitt’s campaign has violated the law requiring the committee to refund donors within 60 days. According to the records filed today, Leavitt has failed to refund the donors for years.
Leavitt seems to have a lot in common with her boss. She fits right in with his swamp.
