Marjorie Taylor Greene’s former campaign manager must pay thousands over phony charity scheme: report

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2020 campaign manager is among several individuals who were forced to cough up funds after being linked to a phony charity, according to Ohio's AG.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced on Thursday that Isaiah Wartman and Luke Mahoney, owners of WAMA Strategies, must pay $22,077.48 in restitution to Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley. WAMA was the primary fundraiser for the Ohio Clean Water Fund, according to authorities.

Yost’s office said that it "began investigating the Ohio Clean Water Fund (OCWF), founder Michael Peppel and the organization’s fundraiser after a complaint from Second Harvest officials, who said they had never given OCWF permission to raise money in the food bank’s name."

Wartman has reportedly worked for Greene as her campaign manager and as a senior political adviser.

“I have said from the beginning that we will continue to fight for the people of East Palestine, which is exactly what we did here,” Yost said in the announcement. “Our Charitable Law Section was able to recover and return every cent intended to aid the community. These scammers preyed on generous donors to try to line their own pockets, but ultimately were stopped and shut down.”

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The news was picked up by Cleveland.com, which noted that Wartman worked for Greene and that "Greene’s campaign paid WAMA Strategies nearly $71,000 in total between April 1 and late June of this year for fundraising consulting, according to her latest Federal Election Commission filing."

The outlet further reported that Mahoney "worked as a campaign staffer for U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican."

"The two formed WAMA Strategies earlier this year, according to a Politico article that ran Feb. 4," one day after a widely publicized train derailment, the report states.