Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw Hit with $42K Fine for Campaign Finance Violations by FEC

Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s (R-TX) campaign committee received a hefty fine from the Federal Election Commission after he failed to properly return hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions.

After being referred to the Office of General Counsel by the Federal Election Commission’s Reports Analysis Division, the Texas Republican was fined $42,000 for failing to give back $223,460.26 in illegal donations from the 2020 election cycle, court documents showed.

Citing the initial referral, the documents read:

The Committee received excessive and apparent prohibited contributions aggregating $223,460.26 for the 2020 primary and general elections from 125 individuals, one non-qualified political action committee, one qualified multicandidate committee, four corporations, and three LLCs.

As an authorized campaign committee, the Committee was limited to accepting $2,800 per election from individuals, $5,000 from multicandidate committees, and was prohibited from accepting any corporate contributions. The Committee, however, received $223,460.26 in excessive and apparent prohibited contributions across four disclosure reports:

…

The Committee does not dispute its failure to make timely refunds, but asserts that since the filing of the Referral, it has now refunded all excessive contributions.

Ultimately, the documents showed that the commission found “reason to believe” Crenshaw’s campaign committee and the treasurer Paul Kilgore violated federal law by “knowingly accepting excessive and prohibited corporate contributions” totaling over $223,460.26 during the 2020 election. The fine was a part of a conciliation agreement Crenshaw’s campaign had with the FEC last month.

“Unfortunately this often happens when campaigns receive thousands of online donations and checks in a short period,” a spokesman for Crenshaw’s campaign told Breitbart News. “We can only process them so quickly. Sometimes donors send more than they are supposed to. We refund them the money, but that takes time. We weren’t fast enough for the FEC deadlines.”

This all comes as Crenshaw is reportedly vying for the top spot on the Homeland Security Committee. Last month, he was one of two House Republicans for the position to go to the southern border with Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to include a response from the Crenshaw campaign, which was provided to Breitbart News after the story was published.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.