Pro-Dunleavy group that claimed to have $3 million may be empty front group, according to IRS filings
Alaska news organizations missed the big story that emerged from the Alaska Public Offices Commission Friday.
The Alaska Beacon went so far as to summarize the meeting this way: “A Friday hearing intended to investigate a major campaign finance complaint against a group backing Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s re-election bid revealed no new evidence to support claims that the group illegally coordinated with Dunleavy’s campaign.”
The Anchorage Daily News ran the Beacon story, which missed the mark by a wide margin. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner did nothing to clarify matters with this report.
Credit Matt Buxton of the Midnight Sun Blog for recognizing the real news—that an alleged $3 million transfer to a pro-Dunleavy group may have never taken place, contrary to documents filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission by leaders of the Republican Governors Association.
Here is the story that should have followed the meeting, which could turn into the biggest Alaska political finance scandal of the year.
The Republican Governors Association claimed to the APOC that it gave $3 million to a new pro-Dunleavy Alaska group in early 2021, three days before the new state law went into effect that required disclosing the names of contributors.
The RGA claimed it had bankrolled “A Stronger Alaska” with $3 million and electronically transferred the money on Feb. 25, 2021.
We didn’t learn about this alleged transfer until early this year because of one of many weaknesses in Alaska campaign disclosure laws.
It is clear that the 2021 decision to transfer $3 million, an unprecedented move so long before an election, was designed to allow the RGA to keep the sources of the money secret. The new law requiring disclosure went into effect on Feb. 28, 2021.
But here’s the thing: The best evidence available right now shows that the transfer never took place.
Someone is lying here.
Had the money changed hands, the Republican Governors Association would have been required to disclose the transfer to the Internal Revenue Service. It didn’t.
So we have the Republican Governors Association telling one story to the Alaska Public Offices Commission and a contradictory story to the IRS.
Search the IRS form 8872 filings by the Republican Governors Association in 2021 . No mention of a $3 million electronic transfer to “A Stronger Alaska.” No mention of “A Stronger Alaska.”
The people at the top of “A Stronger Alaska,” which appears to be an imaginary group, are the same people at the top of the Republican Governors Association, based at the same D.C. office on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The chief financial officer of the RGA is Erim Canligil of Washington, D.C., who is also treasurer of A Stronger Alaska. The executive director of the RGA is David Rexrode of Washington, D.C., the chair of A Stronger Alaska.
Last week Canligil and Rexrode put their names on a document filed with the APOC that claimed A Stronger Alaska paid Brett Huber $11,500 on June 13, 2022, Huber’s monthly fee for giving advice to the Dunleavy support group.
Huber, Dunleavy’s former campaign manager, is the key contract worker in Alaska for the Dunleavy support group,.
But Canligil also put his name on a document filed with the IRS that says the June payment to Huber was made by the Republican Governors Association.
Only one of the groups is actually paying. Which one is it?
I think it’s probably the RGA, which pretended to set up the Dunleavy front group in 2021 to avoid the disclosure rules, but wanted to hold onto the $3 million for as long as possible.
Huber received a no-bid $50,000 contract from Dunleavy in the spring when he left his state job and went to work as a contractor for “A Stronger Alaska.” On the same day that press reports appeared about the no-bid deal, May 31, and Dunleavy’s office said the contract had to go to Huber because no one else could do it, the Dunleavy administration said it canceled the no-bid deal, but didn’t tell the public.
On Feb. 25, 2021, the same day that RGA claimed it transferred $3 million to “A Stronger Alaska,” Huber created a new LLC, “Strategic Synergies,” the company that is being paid by “A Stronger Alaska” to help manage the $3 million.
Huber claims it was a coincidence that he created his new LLC that day.
What we have is one coincidence after another.
Much remains to be uncovered.
It appears that “A Stronger Alaska” is a shell group for the Republican Governors Association, that the $3 million was never transferred and that the RGA is the real group, all of which should be front-page news in Alaska.
There are potential violations of many campaign finance rules in this mess. It deserves immediate attention by the APOC and Alaska news organizations.
The best evidence that the $3 million was never transferred is that the Republican Governors Association didn’t inform the IRS, which is something they would have done. They “informed” the APOC, a weak organization that is easier to con.
At a minimum the APOC should enact an emergency order to shut down “A Stronger Alaska” and/or the RGA and demand that its electioneering for Dunleavy cease.