Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Ryan Zinke resigned from his Interior secretary post in December amid ethics investigations and wrath from the White House. But his leadership PAC, along with an obscure network of dubious PACs, continued to funnel donor money to closely tied political consultants.

Four PACs with Ryan Zinke connections collectively raised more than $2.6 million this year, nearly 70 percent of which came from donors who gave $200 or less. The groups included Zinke’s leadership PAC, the Supporting Electing American Leaders (SEAL) PAC, and a super PAC he created, Special Operations For America, as well as one PAC he fundraised for while he was Interior secretary and another that backed him when he ran for Congress.

These groups went on to spend more than $1.7 million — nearly two-thirds of their total expenditures — at a handful of D.C.-area vendors that share the same personnel and addresses. The PACs themselves contributed next to nothing to Republican campaigns and spent little on independent expenditures to boost Republican candidates.

Kimberly Bellissimo, owner of conservative direct mail fundraising firm ForthRight Strategy, has reaped the rewards from her connection with Zinke. Her firm took in more than $160,000 through the first half of 2019, while Direct Support Services — a D.C. company that lists Bellissimo as its executing officer in incorporation records — took home nearly $774,000. Both firms list the same D.C. address as the Zinke-linked PACs.

Zinke took on ForthRight Strategy for his 2014 congressional campaign and steered millions to Bellissimo’s firms for fundraising fees over the next half-decade. After leaving Congress for the Trump administration, Zinke helped raise money for a mysterious group that also funneled money to Bellissimo for fundraising services.

Zinke came under fire for taking taxpayer-funded trips to Republican fundraisers while leading Interior. According to Politico, he took part in a Virgin Islands Republican Party fundraiser along with Bellissimo in March 2017, during which donors contributed $5,000 to the questionable committee to take a picture with the former Montana congressman.

VIGOP is run by Scott Mackenzie, a political consultant well known for operating so-called scam PACs. His groups have drawn fire from well-known conservatives over shady practices.

During his time as Virginia attorney general in 2014, acting Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli filed a lawsuit against Mackenzie’s groups accusing them of running a “national fundraising scam.”

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) said Mackenzie’s PACs were “preying on seniors” and demanded that VIGOP stop using his name in fundraising appeals in 2016. The PAC did not listen, and spent nearly $24,000 on voter contact mail to boost Hurd as recently as July 19.

To raise money, VIGOP largely targets small donors with direct mail appeals. So far this year, the PAC paid more than $140,000 to Consolidated Mailing Services for postage, printing and voter contact mail. It also gave about $110,000 to Direct Support Services and about $39,000 to ForthRight Strategy — the two groups that share an address with Zinke’s PACs — for similar services.

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One of Zinke’s groups, the SEAL PAC, also paid nearly $750,000 total to Direct Support Services, Forthright Strategy and Consolidated Mailing Services for direct mail printing and postage.

Consolidated Mailing Services lists an address in Sterling, Va., that is the same building used by Capital Caging Corp, another vendor used by both the SEAL PAC and Zinke’s super PAC.

The SEAL PAC spent just $41,000 on digital advertising supporting Republican congressional candidates in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and made a $2,500 contributions to Dan McCready, who is running in the Sep. 10 special election in North Carolina’s 9th District, and Rep. Fred Keller, who won a special election in Pennsylvania’s 10th District earlier this year. It also gave $3,500 to Rep. Jim Banks’ (R-Ind.) leadership PAC.

Zinke’s super PAC, Special Operations For America, has not made any independent expenditures but paid a total of $375,000 to the four vendors through June 30.

A fourth group, Freedom’s Defense Fund, which backed Zinke when he first ran for Congress, raised about $434,000 during the first half of 2019 and spent more than half of it with Direct Support Services, Forthright Strategy and Consolidated Mailing Services.

Consolidated Mailing Services and ForthRight Strategy also received money from the American Conservative Union, the organization that hosts the annual CPAC conference. Bellissimo is a board member with the group, which has had its own run-ins with scam PACs.

Fraudulent PACs posing as conservative groups are flourishing under the Donald Trump era, using direct mail to target older donors and spending exorbitant amounts of money with largely unknown fundraising companies to do so. These groups spend far more on fundraising expenses than established PACs, often taking in barely more than they spend.

The growing dilemma has shaken conservative groups and leaders. After Axios and the Campaign Legal Center reported that Trump’s former deputy campaign manager David Bossie was lining his own pockets with his Presidential Coalition 527 group, Trump labeled the America First Action super PAC the Trump campaign’s only “approved” outside group.

The Federal Election Commission has been ineffective in clamping down on these groups, as PACs are exempt from rules that prohibit candidates from using donor money for themselves. Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, now the FEC chairwoman, unsuccessfully appealed to Congress in 2016 to increase the commission’s ability to protect donors from scam PACs.

In March, a federal judge struck down an FEC rule that prohibited unauthorized PACs from using a candidate’s name, potentially making it easier for scam PACs to mislead donors.



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