Federal Elections complaint alleges Royce White isn’t reporting spending in Minnesota Senate race

A Washington, D.C.,-based watchdog filed a federal campaign finance complaint against recently endorsed GOP U.S. Senate candidate Royce White on Thursday, claiming he violated disclosure laws in a previous and current campaign.

The nonprofit Campaign Legal Center submitted a 27-page complaint, alleging White illegally used $157,000 from his 2022 congressional campaign for personal items on everything from clothing and cosmetics to jewelry, fitness, strip and nightclubs.

“White appears to have misappropriated donors’ money to benefit himself, and then doubled down by failing to report how his 2024 Senate campaign is spending its money,” the complaint read, adding that White’s “outrageous pattern of personal enrichment and obfuscation violates the Federal Election Campaign Act’s bedrock requirements that candidates must accurately disclose the contributions they receive and the disbursements they make.”

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) generally does not comment on pending investigations or complaints so it’s difficult to track the process. If the FEC were to investigate and find wrongdoing, there are a range of penalties that could be imposed from conciliation to a federal lawsuit. The FEC did not comment specifically on this case and the state GOP did not respond to a request for comment.

Reached by phone, White declined to answer questions about the complaint. Instead, he used an expletive followed by the word, “communists” and said, “That’s the quote.”

The complaint alleges that White’s lax reporting has carried over to his Senate campaign. From Jan. 1 through April 30, the complaint said, White reported $8,100 in contributions to his campaign and a single expense of $216.38. He claimed to have disbursed that amount on March 31 to “Anedot” for “credit card processing fees,” the complaint said.

The complaint alleges there is “ample indication” the Senate campaign “has incurred other expenses and made disbursements that it has simply not disclosed.”

In support of that claim, the complaint noted the White campaign maintains a “polished campaign website, which not only contains information about White’s platform but also solicits contributions through both the Anedot and WinRed donation platforms.”

White’s campaign site also links to a variety of social media pages affiliated with White and his podcast, “Please Call Me Crazy.” The site includes a campaign video announcement with a montage of images and a disclaimer at the end stating it was “paid for by Royce White for Senate,” the complaint said.

“White’s 2024 Senate campaign’s failure to report virtually any campaign disbursements is particularly brazen in light of the fact that White has previously run for federal office and is at least somewhat familiar with the requirement that campaigns must report their disbursements,” the complaint said.

The complaint also noted that White registered his U.S. Senate campaign committee last Sept. 15 with Michelle Wahlen as his treasurer. He then notified the FEC in February that Wahlen had resigned Jan. 1. White reported Tom Madden as his new treasurer on April 30. “As such, Royce White for Senate appears to have had no treasurer of record for nearly four months,” the complaint said.

The same was true from July 15, 2022, through Oct. 5, 2023, the complaint said. During that period, the Royce White for Congress campaign reported no treasurer while raising $16,300. White ran for the U.S. House in the Minneapolis-centered Fifth District.

For failing to file a pre-primary report in 2022, White was fined almost $8,000 by the FEC.

The latest complaint notes that from March 2022 through mid-October of 2022, White’s campaign reported spending more than $157,000 on expenses that appear, on their face, to be personal, the complaint said. But the complaint acknowledged that many of the explanations for the expenses are “too ambiguous or opaque to tell.”

Federal law prohibits using campaign donations for personal use defined as any use for an obligation or expense of a person that would exist regardless of a person’s campaign. The decisions about personal use can be made by the FEC on a case-by-case basis.

The Campaign Legal Center describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization advocating for every eligible voter to participate in the election process.