Questions Raised About Ted Lieu’s Use of Campaign Funds for Stanford Donations

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) is facing questions about alleged donations to Stanford University from his campaign fund that were apparently made before his son entered school at the prestigious college.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner noted Wednesday evening:

Congressman Ted Lieu has a son enrolled at Stanford, according to his social media profile. Lieu’s congressional campaign from early 2016 to mid-2018 donated $50,146 to Stanford University — $50,000 of that in two donations over nine months through the beginning of 2018.

Now, it appears one of Lieu’s sons is enrolled at Stanford, entering as a freshman this month — or at least that’s what his son’s social media account says.

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As explained by the FEC, “Campaign committees can give gifts to charity. The amount donated to a charitable organization cannot be used for purposes that personally benefit the candidate.”

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When one Twitter account tweeted about this today, alleging impropriety, the account was suspended shortly after.

Carney cited original reporting by Jennifer Van Laar of the Red State blog. In 2019, she noted:

Take, for example, a pair of $25,000 contributions Rep. Lieu, the father of two teenage sons, made to Stanford University in 2017 and 2018. Were they made out of pure generosity, or for some other reason?

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Why is Rep. Lieu suddenly giving so generously to his alma mater (which is one of the elite universities involved in the “Varsity Blues” scandal)? There’s nothing concrete tying his gift to any personal gain, but since one of Lieu’s sons is in high school, the timing is rather curious.

It is possible — even likely — that Lieu’s son, who appears to be a high achiever would have been admitted to Stanford even without these donations. Elite universities tend not to notice donations, for admissions purposes, until they reach seven figures.

Yet the donations create an appearance of a conflict of interest for Lieu — not for the first time, Van Lear reported separately, noting that Lieu had apparently donated campaign funds to an organization on whose board his wife sat.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new e-book, We Told You So!: The First 100 Days of Joe Biden’s Radical Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.