Before he was indicted on extortion charges, Michael Avenatti appeared to be gaining influence in Washington due to his representation of Stormy Daniels, with a few even considering him a dark horse presidential candidate.

In preparation for the 2020 run that never was, Avenatti started his own PAC. The Fight PAC had a simple purpose — to “fight back against Donald Trump and his criminal enterprise operating out of the White House.”

It’s unclear, however, just what the PAC did to fight back. Instead, the Avenatti-run PAC spent nearly one-third of its money paying Avenatti himself.

The Fight PAC spent $104,934 through 2018, of which $31,776 went to Avenatti. The PAC spent more than $13,000 on plane flights, more than $5,000 on hotels and $683 on Uber rides, along with other expenses related to transportation and lodging. The PAC reported spending hundreds at multiple Miami restaurants — $533 at high-end southeast Asian restaurant Komodo and $314 at Cecconi’s, an Italian restaurant.

The majority of the PAC’s spending does not appear to be election-related. Avenatti is the treasurer of the PAC, a position that often pays, but his self-payments were all listed as reimbursements for travel, food and lodging.

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Avenatti’s PAC did spend some money with political groups. It shelled out $25,000 to Break Something LLC, a major Democratic consultant, for online advertising. Right on cue, the PAC spent $18,613 on Facebook ads in October in November in an attempt to draw more donors to the PAC.

The Fight PAC drew criticism in 2018 when it used ActBlue to piggyback off of popular former Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke. Avenatti tweeted a link to ActBlue that appeared to donate to O’Rourke, but all contributions on the page were actually split between O’Rourke and Avenatti’s PAC.

Avenatti poured cold water on the criticism, noting that other candidates often split contributions through ActBlue, but eventually deleted the donation page. The PAC received a number of large contributions through the Democratic fundraising service.

Despite warnings from Democratic FEC commissioners, the agency still doesn’t subject PACs to self-dealing and personal use restrictions present in campaign committees.

The Department of Justice has increasingly cracked down on so-called “scam PACs” in recent years. A GOP consultant was recently indicted for using a super PAC to funnel more than $1 million in contributions to himself. He pleaded guilty last week.



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