Feds demand Herschel Walker's campaign fix accounting mess
It's been roughly two months since former NFL star Herschel Walker lost his bid to become a U.S. senator representing Georgia, but the Federal Election Commission says that his old Senate campaign committee needs to clean up its books.
In a letter sent Feb. 5 to Team Herschel treasurer Salvatore Purpura, FEC senior campaign finance and reviewing analyst Bradley Austin said that the Republican's campaign still had multiple problems in accounting for its finances and he demanded fixes be filed by no later than next month.
Among other things, the letter identifies inadequate explanations for contributions that exceed legal limits on individual donations, as well as incomplete accounting for contributions from organizations that are not registered with the FEC.
What's more, the letter says that the campaign has new mistakes in trying to correct some of its old mistakes.
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"The Commission notes the redesignation or reattribution of several contributions," the letter states. "Please amend your report to disclose the proper format for redesignations or reattributions. The first entry must disclose, as a memo entry, the information for the contribution as it was originally reported."
The FEC then goes on to write a lengthy list of contributors for whom the campaign committed had "disclosed the wrong amount and/or date" of the contributions.
The letter concludes by warning the committee that it will not get further opportunities to correct mistakes without potentially facing some kind of penalty.
"Please note, you will not receive an additional notice from the Commission on this matter," Austin writes. "Adequate responses must be received by the Commission on or before the due date noted above to be taken into consideration in determining whether audit action will be initiated. Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act may also result in an enforcement action against the committee."
It's not uncommon for federal political campaigns that raise a lot of money — Republican or Democratic — to receive a warning letter or two from federal regulators about problems with their finances, be them big or small.
But Walker's campaign committee, which is still technically active and open, received numerous warnings from the FEC over the past many months.
Walker, who lost in December to Democratic Sen. Rafael Warnock, still had more than $5 million remaining in his Team Herschel campaign account as of Dec. 31, according to federal records.