Brown’s campaign hit with FEC complaint over alleged super PAC coordination

The U.S. Senate campaign of Nevada Republican Sam Brown is facing a Federal Elections Commission complaint alleging it accepted an illegal in-kind contribution from a super political action committee.

Finance laws dictate that such PACs can’t coordinate with or contribute to a federal campaign, such as Brown’s efforts to beat incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev. Rather, they can produce advertisements in support of a candidate.

Duty First Nevada PAC, the group in question, allegedly paid a consulting group to produce a video featuring Nevada veterans — something that’s within the rights of campaign finance regulations.

However, Duty First Nevada PAC told the FEC in a July 5 filing that it had ceased operations. The videos it paid to produce were put online July 25.

Brown’s campaign then published parts of the video to its social media accounts, which the complaint alleges amounts to accepting an in-kind gift.

End Citizens United, a left-leaning advocacy group focusing on money in politics, filed the complaint this week.

Tiffany Muller, the group’s president, called the act “an egregious violation of federal law that opens the door for corruption in our elections.”

The complaint is the third that End Citizens United — which has endorsed Rosen — has filed against Brown in the past 12 months.

Submitted in October 2023, the first complaint relates to a separate PAC that, CNN reported, paid down Brown’s campaign debt instead of helping elect Republicans as advertised.

The organization’s second complaint alleges Brown financed his unsuccessful 2022 Senate primary campaign by directing donors to a super PAC supporting him once they had maxed out their spending on the campaign. Both are still under review by the elections commission.

End Citizens United’s own PAC has given $4 million since 2016 to Democrats running for office, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign finances and lobbying.

End Citizens United’s campaign finance investigations also largely target Republicans seeking office.

Raegan Lehman, Brown’s communications director, called the complaint a “partisan attack” in a statement to the Sun.

The most recent complaint centers on a mutual vendor of the campaign and the super PAC: Pathfinder Strategic. Pathfinder produced the video interviewing Nevada veterans and was paid $34,000 by the PAC for film b-roll and video production services; Brown’s campaign paid the vendor $1,500 for video production.

Pathfinder President James Fisfis previously led Chariot Campaigns for 16 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Pointing to the username of the account that published the video online — “Chariot LLC” — End Citizens United asserted that Pathfinder was connected to the alleged illegal contribution.

In August, Brown’s Senate campaign published a 45-second clip from the interviews to its TikTok. In it, Redmond Barnes, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Reno business owner, called current leadership “dysfunctional at best.”

“He’s still fighting for what’s right,” Barnes said of Brown, a retired Army officer who was injured in Afghanistan. “It really speaks to Sam’s character and how he’s gonna handle difficult problems.”

Redmond also said Brown “understands the struggles that all veterans feel at some point.” In the original “Service” ad, Barnes said the same thing.

“It is readily apparent that this video comes from the same interview,” End Citizens United wrote in its complaint. “The timing thus clearly suggests that it was posted solely to transmit the footage to the Brown campaign.”

Political campaigns can, and regularly do, publish content to their campaign websites that then gets used in PAC advertising. End Citizens United’s complaint is flipped, with the PAC making video used by the campaign.

“It’s perfectly legal to share this soldier’s story and they know it,” Lehman wrote. “Why don’t they want you to see it?”

The relationship between the campaign and Pathfinder is further complicated by the fact that Richard Hernandez, a Brown adviser, is senior account executive at Pathfinder. He told the Sun he had “nothing to do with the PAC.”

Eric Wang, counsel for the Brown campaign, wrote in a statement that the FEC allows PACs to share a firm if there is a firewall.

“Pathfinder Strategic has such a firewall and follows it,” he said.

“Now that this race is tightening and more Nevadans are choosing to abandon career politician Jacky Rosen, it’s no surprise this Democrat organization is up to their old dirty tricks against the person who threatens their power the most,” Lehman said.

While the presidential race in Nevada is in a dead heat, recent polling shows a strong lead for Rosen. The latest poll from Morning Consult had the Democrat 10 points ahead of her opponent.

Ending the complaint, End Citizens United wrote that if the FEC didn’t investigate Brown, it would enable super PACs to directly contribute to candidates.

“This kind of secretive, backroom coordination … undermines the fundamental principle of fair play in our elections,” Muller said.

[email protected] / 702-990-8923 / @Kyle_Chouinard