The congressional campaign of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was fined $68,000 for violating campaign finance rules, according to several reports.
In documents released on Friday, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) revealed that Waters’ 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, had violated “several campaign finance laws” and had reportedly failed “to accurately report receipts and disbursements in calendar year 2020,” according to Fox News.
In response, the Democrat lawmaker’s campaign agreed to pay the fine, as well as “send its treasurer to a Commission-sponsored training program for political committees,” according to the outlet.
Fox News reported:
The FEC accused Citizens for Waters of “failing to accurately report receipts and disbursements in calendar year 2020,” “knowingly accepting excessive contributions” and “making prohibited cash disbursements,” according to one document that appears to be a legally binding agreement that allows both parties to avoid going to court.
The document indicated that the “Respondent shall submit evidence of the required registration and attendance at such event” to the FEC, according to the outlet.
OpenSecrets reported the FEC found that Waters’ campaign had “accepted $19,000 worth of excessive contribution and made 7,000 worth of ‘prohibited cash disbursements’ from a petty cash fund.”
Leilani Beaver, Waters’ campaign attorney previously claimed that “errors” made by the campaign committee were due to “limited staff availability and resources” during the COVID-19 pandemic:
The FEC’s bipartisan, 4-0 vote took place on April 29, just before the agency entered a period of de fact shutdown when Republican Commissioner Allen Dickerson stepped down after the expiration of his term and the agency found itself with too few commissioners to legally conduct high-level agency business.
Waters’ campaign committee “acknowledges errors were made which were not willful or purposeful,” her campaign attorney, Leilani Beaver, wrote to the FEC last year during the agency’s investigation, adding that “the errors were primarily a result of limited staff availability and resources during the pandemic.”
Breitbart News reported in December 2022 that an FEC report “disclosed that Citizens of Waters” had sent Waters’ daughter, Karen Waters’ company, Progressive Connections, “two payments totaling $8,000 in June for ‘slate mailer management fees.’”
The FEC report revealing that Waters’ campaign had sent her daughter $8,000 came after her daughter’s company had “received more than $1 million from her mother’s campaign since 2003.”
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