Ties that bind The potential super PAC overlap involves top Kent aide and strident election denier Matt Braynard, a longtime adviser to the candidate who has spoken on the campaign’s behalf as recently as October. In the run-up to the 2022 election, Braynard’s documented ties to white nationalists contributed to a battery of negative press about Kent’s proximity to extremist groups. Kent, running in Washington state’s 3rd District, ultimately lost to Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez in 2022 by fewer than 3,000 votes. He’s challenging her again this cycle. According to FEC records, a company registered by Braynard’s wife at their shared address, called “QUB Consulting,” has received tens of thousands of dollars from the pro-Kent super PAC “Pacific Northwest Political Action Committee.” In all, the group has paid QUB $64,000—$10,000 more than its other expenses combined. Braided narrative The payments started just days before the November 2022 election. Braynard told Talking Points Memo in September that he stopped working for the Kent campaign in November 2022. But federal law requires campaign staff and vendors to take a 120-day “cooling off” period before they can begin working with a super PAC. Braynard, however, was still fielding campaign comments one day after the super PAC paid QUB $22,000 for a text message blast. And metadata and source code in campaign blog posts from as recently as December 2023 show Braynard’s byline. Braynard didn’t deny that he wrote the blogs, only telling The Daily Beast that he had “long volunteered” services to the campaign. The statement also didn’t deny that the super PAC paid him through QUB. Instead, Braynard attacked the “sexist” suggestion that his wife is incapable of running a political consulting firm—a suggestion The Daily Beast never made. Spoiler: It’s not sexism Campaign finance experts said the super PAC and shell company arrangements raise legal concerns. Saurav Ghosh, director of federal reform at nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast that the overlap suggests impermissible coordination. “If this company [QUB] is Braynard and he was serving as campaign staffer, it’s hard to imagine he could do that without running afoul of campaign finance rules,” Ghosh said. Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director at watchdog Documented, highlighted the proximity of the QUB payments to the 2022 election, independent expenditures for election communications. The 120-day “cooling off” rule would seem to eliminate wiggle room for Braynard, Fischer said. “It’s hard to see how a staffer could move over to a super PAC at the height of the campaign and not be providing key inside information,” Fischer told The Daily Beast. 99 problems But it’s unclear whether the Kent campaign has paid Braynard, either this year or for most of the 2022 election, when he worked on the campaign. That’s because the campaign has routed the vast majority of its expenses—about two of every three dollars spent—through an apparent shell company, called “HWY 99 Corporation.” Braynard did not deny having ever gotten money from this entity when The Daily Beast pressed him, only alluding vaguely to having “long volunteered.” Campaign finance experts told The Daily Beast that HWY 99—registered in Delaware under the name of a nondescript corporate agent—appears to function as a master payer. The pass-through entity obscures the identities of the true payees, including campaign vendors and possibly even staffers. These experts said the whole arrangement raises concerns about disclosure rules, as well as the campaign’s transparency with voters. Shelling out It’s unclear who exactly is behind HWY 99. The company is only associated with Kent’s political committees, and no other committee has ever paid it, according to FEC records. As of the most recent filings, covering through late September, the company had siphoned more than $1.3 million from the Kent operation, ascribed to a vast range of services. “The company appears to be a shell,” said Ghosh, of CLC. “Here you have an entity that was recently set up, no other campaigns pay it, and you can’t trace it, which all points to an effort to conceal something.” Braynard is hardly the only staffer missing from the Kent campaign’s expense reports. The campaign has reported only one “payroll” or “salary” expense ever—a $5,000 disbursement in July 2021 to former campaign manager, Byron Sanford. Pot kettle black In a 204-word statement, the Kent campaign didn’t explain HWY 99. “Our campaign has previously faced phony claims that were published by zero accountability publications like the Daily Beast that later ignored the FEC ruling that fully vindicated our campaign and our candidate,” the statement said. (The Daily Beast wrote up that FEC decision. And Fischer noted a similar accusation against a Democrat for a shell scheme in the 2020 primary. The FEC commissioners found 4-2 that the scheme violated transparency rules but were forced to dismiss the matter after the retirement of a commissioner.) The campaign further claimed that the FEC has codified its campaign practices, which are “commonplace among other campaigns, including Marie Perez’s.”
The two examples aren’t similar. Gluesenkamp Pérez’s expenses do not have evidence to support the campaign’s allegation. Unlike Kent’s HWY 99, her top vendors are known firms that contract with a number of political committees, and her campaign lists several employees who draw a salary.
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