Dave Levinthal, Open Secrets

This story was originally published by OpenSecrets.

President Donald Trump’s White House press secretary has a money problem that won’t go away.

As spring turned to summer, Karoline Leavitt’s 2022 congressional campaign committee failed to pay off a penny of the $326,370.50 it owes across more than 100 creditors, according to a new disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Karoline for Congress raised no money during April, May or June to help retire the debt, the disclosure indicates.

The situation underscores how even the most high-profile political figures in the country sometimes leave their supporters and vendors high, dry and with little recourse if their campaigns hit financial shoals.

Much of the campaign’s debt stems from illegal and excessive contributions that it accepted several years ago but hasn’t returned to donors. Leavitt’s committee reported no cash on hand as of June 30 and long ago spent excessive contributions it accepted.

Dozens of individual donors are owed refunds, including former New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson and former New Hampshire Senate Majority Leader Robert Clegg Jr., who died in 2023.

Other creditors include campaign vendors, such as Missouri-based consultant Axiom Strategies ($46,747), Missouri-based polling firm Remington Research Group ($41,000) and Washington, D.C.-based fundraising firm Fundraising Inc. ($12,815).

In January, Leavitt’s congressional committee amended 17 campaign finance reports to account for previously unreported campaign contributions that exceeded federal limits, NOTUS reported at the time. In April, the Karoline for Congress committee did refund a handful of donors who had contributed more money than legally allowed, including Leavitt’s parents.

The White House referred OpenSecrets to the Karoline for Congress committee. Rob Phillips of AxCapital, who serves as the committee’s treasurer, did not respond to requests for comment.

A source close to Leavitt, who spoke to OpenSecrets on condition of anonymity, underscored that Leavitt doesn’t personally owe anyone money and that her congressional campaign, which is being audited by the FEC, is “working with the FEC through the audit and that process is ongoing, hence the outstanding ‘debt.’”

In November 2022, the Democrat-aligned political action committee End Citizens United filed an FEC complaint against Leavitt’s committee, alleging that it violated campaign finance law by accepting contributions that exceeded federal limits. But more than two and a half years on, the independent, bipartisan body has not ruled on the case against Karoline for Congress.

Nor will the FEC rule anytime soon because since May the agency has lacked the minimum number of commissioners — four — to conduct high-level business, such as formalizing investigations, approving audit recommendations and issuing civil penalties. The Department of Justice could theoretically involve itself, although it’s highly unlikely that the department, led by Trump-appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi, would investigate a political committee tied to Trump’s White House press secretary.

Trump alone may nominate new FEC commissioners, whom the U.S. Senate must then confirm. But Trump, NOTUS reported earlier this month, has yet to send any nominees to the Senate despite congressional leaders recommending three experienced candidates for the president’s consideration.

“Cases like this send a clear message: If you break campaign finance laws, nothing will happen to you,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller told OpenSecrets. “It’s open season for corrupt leaders who want to game the system and get away with it.”

In 2022, Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) defeated Leavitt by about 8 percentage points to retain the state’s 1st District seat. Leavitt, then 25 years old, reached the general election by scoring an upset victory in a Republican primary.

Had Leavitt won the general election, she would have become the youngest woman ever to serve in the U.S. House.

Leavitt this year did earn a different superlative: youngest White House press secretary. She’s since become one of the most recognizable members of the Trump administration, conducting frequent — and often animated — press briefings.

Trump described Leavitt as a “smart,” “tough” and “highly effective communicator” upon announcing her as his White House press secretary.

Undying campaign debt

By law, federal political candidates are not personally liable for their committees’ campaign debt.

For a candidate such as Leavitt whose campaign committee goes broke after losing an election, their options for making creditors whole are limited.

Foremost, the candidate may personally contribute money to their campaign committee, which in turn may pay people and companies owed money. But federal records indicate that this is rare.

The committee itself may also attempt to raise money from new donors in an attempt to retire old debts, although few would-be contributors are interested in giving cash to a failed campaign.

Some high-profile candidates saddled with debt get creative.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, for one, paid down $22.5 million in campaign debt from her 2008 campaign through a multi-pronged approach that included selling leftover campaign trinkets, offering face time President Bill Clinton and renting the personal information of her campaign supporters to other Democrats and private data brokers. Clinton’s 2008 committee paid off its debts by 2013 — just in time for Clinton to announce another White House run in the 2016 election cycle.

Democrat Kamala Harris’ ill-fated 2020 presidential primary campaign racked up more than $1 million in debt.

But Harris’ old campaign got a boost after becoming Joe Biden’s running mate, with the Biden-Harris campaign directing donors to pay off Harris campaign debt. Biden and Harris also leveraged an obscure 2010 FEC ruling that states: “The principal campaign committee for a presidential ticket may transfer general election funds to retire debts from the vice presidential nominee’s presidential primary campaign.” Biden’s own also-ran presidential campaign from 2008 prompted this ruling after Biden became Barack Obama’s running mate.

But the reigning king of campaign debt remains Republican Newt Gingrich, whose failed 2012 presidential campaign still owes dozens of creditors a combined $4.63 million as of June 30, according to FEC records.

Verizon, FedEx, Comcast, the social media company X, former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) and former presidential candidate Herman Cain, who died in 2020, are among the creditors that the Newt 2012 committee never paid.

Other former presidential campaigns that still owe massive amounts of debt include the committees of Democrat Al Sharpton (2004), Republican Rick Santorum (both from 2012 and 2016) and Mike Pence (2024).

The presidential committee of Sharpton, the civil rights leader and MSNBC mainstay, stopped bothering to file still-mandatory reports with the FEC this year. This earned Sharpton 2004 a strongly worded letter from the campaign finance enforcement and regulation agency earlier this year before the agency entered a now three-month-long period of de facto shutdown.

As of Dec. 31, Sharpton 2024 reported owing creditors nearly $926,000, with the U.S. Treasury, United Parcel Service and Sharpton himself among the campaign’s lingering creditors.

Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist. He served as OpenSecrets’ editorial and communications director from 2009 to 2011.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and President Donald Trump’s friend turned foe, has not yet officially established the “America Party,” the idea for which he announced this weekend.

But a number of jokers, wags and potential fraudsters have rushed to fill that vacuum, filing paperwork with federal regulators claiming the America Party mantle — and prompting officials at the Federal Election Commission to fire off a volley of legal warnings.

So far, at least 10 separate political committees bearing some variation of the “America Party” name have been registered with the FEC since Musk’s announcement, an OpenSecrets review of federal records indicates.

Several more, such as “The DOGE Party” and an “Elon Reeve Musk” congressional committee in Texas, play on Musk’s name or history.

“It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete committee information,” FEC Senior Campaign Finance Analyst Jacqueline Gausepohl wrote to “The American Party (TAP)” on Monday.

“The America Party (TAP),” which filed organizational paperwork on Sunday, purports to be based in Hawthorne, Calif., where Musk’s Tesla company has a large facility. It lists its treasurer as Vaibhav Taneja — chief financial officer of the automobile and solar company.

Gausepohl added that “knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent” statements or representations to a federal agency is against federal law, and the FEC reserves the right to “report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.”

The other questionable Musk-themed parties, including “The America Party Committee,” “US American Party” and “American Meme Party,” received similar FEC letters this week.

FEC staffers have found themselves “playing Whack-a-Mole shutting down putative America Party committees registered by over-eager Musk supporters, pranksters, and perhaps a few scammers,” said Brett Kappel, an election law attorney with Harmon Curran. “The FEC correctly informed the filers that submitting a false statement to the commission is a felony.”

Kappel also noted that the one filer using Taneja’s name “may also be prosecuted under a separate federal identity theft statute.”

While the FEC is indeed talking tough, the agency also finds itself in the midst of a de facto shutdown.

Only three of six commissioners at the independent, bipartisan agency remain on the job, and it needs four commissioners in place to conduct high-level business, such as formalizing investigations or issuing civil penalties. Congressional leaders have sent the White House the names of potential commissioners, but President Trump has yet to nominate anyone.

Processing campaign finance and committee paperwork and writing strongly worded warnings are among the limited number of actions the agency may take until Trump nominates, and the Senate confirms, new commissioners.

The Department of Justice could criminally pursue people propagating committee filing shenanigans, although such action is rare.

The FEC “declines to comment on specific filings,” spokesperson Myles Martin said. Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The America Party is needed to fight the Republican/Democrat Uniparty,” Musk posted to X on Sunday.

“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump told reporters later that day.

‘Deez Nuts’ effect

This spate of hinky, Musk-y political committees harkens back to the “Deez Nuts” phenomenon of 2015.

That year, 15-year-old Iowa high schooler Brady Olson formed a presidential campaign committee for his “Deez Nuts” alter ego, which North Carolina’s Public Policy Polling included in a survey.

“Deez Nuts” polled at 9 percent — and the FEC soon found itself inundated with hundreds of bogus political committee filings from cartoon characters, super heroes, the ghost of Ronald Reagan and, yes, plenty of body parts and sex acts.

At best, forming fake political committees can sow confusion.

For example, several websites and web influencers were sufficiently bamboozled this week by the rash of copycat America Party committees.

Quiver Quantitative — in a story republished by the NASDAQ stock market website — blasted out a story headlined, “Fundraising Update: Elon Musk Files With FEC to Launch ‘America Party’.”

Self-described “Tesla retail shareholder advocate” and “fangirl of Elon” Alexandra Merz, meanwhile, posted a screenshot of a fake “America Party” FEC filing on her X account feed, which boasts more than 194,000 followers.

This prompted Musk himself to respond Sunday from his official X account: “This filing is false and has been reported as such to the FEC.”

At worst, phoney documents filed with the FEC can adversely target people or organizations, including then-President Joe Biden during 2023.

In rare cases, individuals have been doxxed in official FEC documents, with the records remaining on an official, public government website for days. Others have been filled with racist invective.

The FEC revised its internal procedures several years ago to combat “filings containing possibly false or fictitious information,” but it hasn’t stopped such filings from coming.

Major party-building obstacles

Musk, meanwhile, faces other challenges if he’s serious about creating a new third party after his recent political break from Trump.

Since the Civil War, fueling and sustaining a successful third party in U.S. politics has proven notoriously difficult.

While examples of American third parties abound, many — such as the Progressive Party, Reform Party and American Independent Party — simply fizzled out.

Others, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, have long struggled for national relevance amid financial and ballot access obstacles and have managed few electoral victories at any level of government.

And while Musk may eventually choose to form a real America Party, complete with official FEC registration documents, that’s not all that’s required.

FEC party committee formation guidance states that a committee “should seek an FEC advisory opinion (AO) to verify that it has attained national committee status before taking advantage of the expanded contribution and expenditure limits that apply to a qualified national committee. The Commission will decide whether the committee or the party has demonstrated sufficient national-level activity to qualify.”

One problem: The FEC’s current lack of commissioners means it cannot, by law, issue advisory opinions, which are official legal recommendations of the agency. If Musk wanted to press forward with establishing the America Party in the absence of a fully functioning FEC, he could potentially seek relief in federal court.

Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist. He served as OpenSecrets’ editorial and communications director from 2009 to 2011.

This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.