Democrat congressional hopeful Eugene Vindman illegally coordinated with an outside political group, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Federal law restricts the amount that campaigns can coordinate with outside organizations and requires accurate reporting of both money and in-kind contributions made to candidates. The complaint alleges that Vindman and his campaign both illegally coordinated with the organization VoteVets, a super PAC that supports liberal and progressive veteran candidates, and that the organization provided “excessive and impermissible” in-kind contribution to Vindman’s campaign.
“The public is all too familiar with politicians not acting honorably,” said Pete McGinnis, the spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative, the nonpartisan watchdog group that filed the complaint. “We hope the FEC takes these apparent violations by Mr. Vindman seriously.”
Vindman has faced scrutiny over discrepancies in statements regarding his military service and falsely claiming to have served in combat. The campaign referred all questions to Travis Tazelaar, the political director for VoteVets. This raised immediate red flags among reporters indicating that the organization was providing press secretary and public relations services to the campaign.
“Super PACs and campaigns are not permitted to work together on communications, which prohibits campaigns altogether from using super PACs as vendors for communications,” said Kendra Arnold, Executive Director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust.
VoteVets has spent nearly $500,000 on TV ads supporting Vindman and donated an additional $10,000 directly to his campaign. The left-wing super PAC has received major support from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and prominent Democrat megadonors out of California.
Vindman rose to fame among progressives for his testimony in Congress concerning a phone call between then-President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He faces Republican nominee and former Army Green Beret Derrick Anderson in the race for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.