Probe reveals Pennsylvania official was using PAC to score investment gains and pay her daughter

Barbara Hafer was an elected official 17 years ago, but that doesn't mean she stopped collecting cash.

The LancastorOnline reported that the former Republican turned Democrat left office after the switch and started collecting cash. A 2017 guilty plea for lying to federal agents makes it impossible for her to hold public office and yet, the money kept flowing in.

One of the problems with the fund, however, is that Pennsylvania election laws mandate that campaign dollars go toward "the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election." If none of the PAC money was going to campaigns it begs the question why it existed and continued to pull in money.

"And what it’s being used for is a troubling practice benefitting Hafer’s daughter, according to a Caucus review of the committee’s reports and interviews with campaign finance experts and reform activists," said the report. "Since she left office, Hafer’s committee has collected $2.3 million — not from donors, but from investments that she made with her donors’ money."

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It's legal for an official to invest campaign money, but what campaign finance activists found the most concerning is that she paid her daughter Bethany over $500,000 and $35,000 in expenses over ten years for being the treasurer and "consulting."

“If the candidate is no longer running for office then what on earth can the former officeholder’s daughter possibly be doing to justify over $5,000 a month in services,” campaign finance expert Brendan Fischer said. “There's a lot of questions there.

They were also required to keep receipts and records of expenses.

Neither Hafers would respond to questions about the money.