Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) is burning through taxpayer funds at a rate that suggests she's not running for re-election.
The former Democrat-turned-independent spent an unusually large amount – $210,000 – of public money on private chartered air travel since 2020, and she has been steering more than $100,000 a month in security expenses to Tulsi Gabbard's sister, reported The Daily Beast.
“That amount of money is just mind-boggling," said Brendan Fischer, executive director of the watchdog group Documented.
Sinema's campaign spent more than $350,000 on security and related expenses in the second half of 2023, while her leadership PAC spent more than $280,000 on those same costs – totaling more than $630,000 for personal security services, and more than one out of every six dollars spent by her campaign and PAC.
The senator's campaign and PAC paid $232,000 of those security costs between August and December to TOA Group LLC, an organization registered to Gabbard's sister Vrindivan Bellord that has no other clients but has raked in a total of $1.2 million from Sinema's campaign and PAC.
“Doesn’t look good from an optics standpoint," said Saurav Ghosh, director of campaign finance reform at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
“It happens all the time, unfortunately — you have a family member or friend with a connection to a candidate, who has no prior experience providing the service, that obviously looks like a sweetheart deal,” Ghosh added. “It’s something donors should think about when deciding who to give their money to.”
