GOP Senate candidate White responds to campaign finance complaint
Royce White, the Minnesota Republican Party-endorsed candidate for U.S. Senate says he isn’t concerned about a complaint filed against him by a Washington, D.C.-based campaign finance watchdog group.
“First off, I don’t recognize them as being legitimate,” White says of the Campaign Legal Center, which bills itself as a nonpartisan government watchdog group. “I think they and many other institutions have become very partisan.”
The complaint cites $61,020 in non-itemized check expenditures and $47,803 in non-itemized wire transfers. It also highlights $5,100.47 in limo/car services, $5,489.25 for nightclubs — including a Miami strip club — $1,885.77 for a Lifetime Fitness health club membership and much more, totaling $157,520.60 in potentially personal expenses.
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“Any novice could look at my FEC filings and tell that they’re incomplete,” White told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS in an interview recorded for “At Issue with Tom Hauser” to air Sunday morning. “By any standard, they’re just incomplete.”
He brought more detailed paperwork to our interview for some of the $108,000 in non-itemized check and wire transfer expenditures, which he says show much of it was for campaign services such as videography and marketing.
“None of those transfers went to Royce White or anyone else closely connected to my campaign,” he says.
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As for a $1,200 expense listed for a strip club in Miami, Florida, White says he did not have a campaign fundraising event there.
“No, actually we got food catered from the Gold Rush, I believe,” White said. “It was two years ago. I can’t be perfectly sure. But the Gold Rush has great food. I’ve always enjoyed the food at gentlemen’s clubs all across the country. We’ll be able to figure that out once we finish the accounting.”
You can see the entire interview with White at 10 a.m. Sunday on “At Issue.”
