IOWA
Three members of a 2012 presidential campaign committee, including the head of Rand Paul’s Super PAC, were charged with illegally concealing payments made to former Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson, according to a federal indictment.
Jesse R. Benton, 37, of Louisville, Kentucky; John M. Tate, 53, of Warrenton, Virginia; and Dimitrios N. Kesari, 49, of Leesburg, Virginia, are charged by indictment with conspiracy, causing false records to obstruct a contemplated investigation, causing the submission of false campaign expenditure reports to the Federal Election Commission and engaging in a scheme to make false statements to the FEC.
Benton is additionally charged with making false statements to the FBI, and Kesari is also charged with obstruction of justice.
Benton and Tate were top aides to Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, and are now working to help his son Rand Paul’s Republican presidential bid.
The federal indictment unsealed Wednesday, the day before Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is to appear onstage during the first debate of the 2016 campaign.
Benton and Tate are leading America’s Liberty, a super PAC supporting Rand Paul’s presidential run, and Benton is married to Rand Paul’s niece, according to published reports.
“I am extremely disappointed in the government’s decision,” Ron Paul said in a statement Wednesday responding to the indictment, according to MSNBC. “I think the timing of this indictment is highly suspicious given the fact that the first primary debate is tomorrow. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those involved. I will not be commenting further on this matter at this time.”
Late last year, in an interview an ABC affiliate in Kentucky, Rand Paul defended making Jesse Benton a part of his campaign: “Jesse is married to my niece and was a big help in the Kentucky election here in 2010 and a big help for Sen. McConnell. And, yes he’ll help us,” he said, according to MSNBC.
MSNBC reported that Benton himself issued a statement after he resigned from the McConnell campaign, following the endorsement-pay-scheme allegations, which said in part:
“Inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue. The press accounts and rumors are particularly hurtful because they are false. However, what is most troubling to me is that they risk unfairly undermining and becoming a distraction to this reelection campaign.”
On Aug. 27, 2014, Sorenson pleaded guilty to causing a campaign committee to falsely report its expenditures to the FEC and to obstruction of justice. He has not yet been sentenced.
Kesari appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa today. Benton and Tate are scheduled to appear on Sept. 3.
“Federal campaign finance laws are intended to ensure the integrity and transparency of the federal election process,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “When political operatives make under-the-table payments to buy an elected official’s political support, it undermines public confidence in our entire political system.”
Wednesday’s indictment says that while Benton, Tate and Kesari were working for Ron Paul during the last campaign, they negotiated with then-Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson to switch his support from Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul in exchange for money.
MSNBC reported that Rand Paul’s 2016 campaign would not comment on the record about the indictment, but Ed Crane, the president of a separate pro-Rand Paul group said, “If I’ve ever had any concern about Rand, it’s with the people he has working with him.”
This is what is alleged in Wednesday’s indictment:
- Defendants were members of a campaign for a candidate in the 2012 presidential election.
- Sorenson initially supported one candidate in the 2012 presidential election.
- But between October and December 2011, Sorenson secretly negotiated with the defendants to switch his support to their candidate in exchange for money.
- On Dec. 28, 2011, at a political event in Des Moines, Iowa, Sorenson publicly announced his switch of support.
- The payments to Sorenson were allegedly made in monthly installments of approximately $8,000 each and ultimately amounted to over $70,000.
- The defendants concealed the payments by causing them to be recorded – both in campaign accounting records and in FEC filings – as campaign-related audio-visual expenditures, and by causing them to be transmitted to a film production company and then to a second company that was controlled by Sorenson.
- The conspirators concealed their campaign’s payments to Sorenson from their candidate and also from the FEC, the FBI and the public.
In response to criticism of Sorenson’s change of support from one candidate to the other, the indictment stated that conspirators arranged for Sorenson to issue public statements denying allegations that he was offered money for his endorsement and noting that the campaign committee’s FEC filings would show that it made no payments to Sorenson.
The Des Moines Register newspaper reported last month that Sorenson was aggressive with officers, banging his head against a squad car cage, when they arrested him for allegedly assaulting his wife.
Court records indicate that his wife escaped through a bedroom window after a confrontation with the 6-foot-1, 250-pound Sorenson, the newspaper reported.
Though Jeannie Shawntell “Shawnee” Sorenson, 42, sent a statement to reporters giving a different version than the police reports, the newspaper stated.
“I did not call police on Kent. I did not want them involved. I told them I would not press charges that Kent looked worse than I did. They said I acted in self-defense. I told them I started it,” she wrote in a statement, according to the Des Moines Register.