One of the benefits of making donations to federal candidates public, is that anyone can look them up and “follow the money.”
In doing so, you might be able find evidence of fraud and/or sketchy practices. Former Everytown For Gun Safety spokeswoman, Lucy McBath, knows a thing or two about that, as she has a FEC campaign finance complaint standing against her for her work with Everytown while she was running for office for the first time in 2018.
We decided to check in on the donations of Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (Everytown’s “grassroots” branch), and what we found regarding the 2020 election cycle is interesting to say the least.
Watts donated a few times this election cycle (2019-2020), and during it used 3 different addresses to do so. Two were home addresses in different states (one from a home she’s no longer at), and another was a business address that is no longer in use by Watts, which was actually associated with her husband and his consulting firm.
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According to the Colorado Secretary of State, the business didn’t follow reporting guidelines pretty much from day one:
Watts Consulting is no longer at that listed location, and even changed its name and address as of 2017-2018. This is confirmed due to the unit being purchased by another individual in 2018 (16th down on the list). We know it’s the same unit, as the unit number for Watts Consulting LLC is listed on this report to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission from 2016 (page 12, section b). It’s an agreement between parties in regards to hedge fund management.
On 9/19/20, Shannon donated to her friend and former Everytown spokeswoman-turned-congresswoman Lucy McBath using the former address of her husband’s apparently delinquent and defunct consulting firm.
It’s impossible for this to be accurate, as the current occupant is on record with the Colorado SoS for still being at the address in question in July of 2020.
Colorado also has political party registration, in which the current occupant is a Republican … and we’re pretty sure he wouldn’t be donating to Lucy McBath, a Democrat in Georgia, anyways. To top it off, the current occupant of the unit has no listed donations to political candidates or federal committees/PACS that has been reported to the FEC, nor has Shannon donated to ”Friends of Lucy McBath” in the previous election cycle, so that rules out saved payment info.
What’s going on here? Why is there a donation to a federal candidate using an old address in which she also donated using her current listed address in the same election cycle?
Why was the old address used right in the middle of two ”correct” donations?
Why did did Watts note “Moms Demand Action” as her employer associated with the address in question for a 2018 donation to ActBlue, but “Moms Demand Action” was not present on the donation to McBath in 2020 and in its place was “not employed“?
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To close, we also find it interesting that just 2 months after the final delinquent notice for Watts Consulting, Shannon Watts started her own 501(C)4 not-for-profit that had a similar pattern to her husband‘s company. It didn’t last long either and was also in violation of reporting duties. It also never filed an IRS 990 form, which is odd considering Rise to Run was advertised by her own publisher as “one of the nation’s leading organizations for recruiting and training women to run for office.”
Now, none of this is evidence of fraud, but it is odd, to say the least. It’s too bad most of the media’s too busy promoting Watts’ gun control agenda to ask her about any of this.
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