Campaign Legal Center (CLC) recently filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his former company XPO Logistics for alleged straw donations that continued through 2018.
The straw donor scheme appears to have been carried out through donations made in the names of DeJoy’s employees and family members.
Straw donations, where a donor routes campaign contributions through another person, are prohibited because they are a means of evading the law’s transparency requirements and contribution limits.
DeJoy is legally permitted to make contributions, as long as he does so in his own name, using his own money, and within legal contribution limits.
However, this does not seem to be what happened. Instead, DeJoy appears to have violated federal campaign finance law by obscuring from the public the true source of more than $1 million in campaign contributions.
CLC uncovered several instances between 2015 and 2018 where XPO employees and DeJoy family members contributed to the same candidate or committee--including over $50,000 to Trump Victory, President Trump’s joint fundraising committee--during the same period of time, and often in similar amounts.
In June, DeJoy hired three of the XPO employees who made such contributions to high-ranking positions at the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Additionally, The Washington Post reported that, through 2014, former employees at DeJoy’s company New Breed Logistics received bonuses as reimbursement for their political contributions.
CLC’s complaint alleges that the patterns of giving continued through 2018, after XPO Logistics acquired New Breed in 2014 and during the period that DeJoy was CEO and board member.
The FEC needs to crack down on violations like this to protect the right of voters to know who is giving money to influence their vote and our government.
