Lynda Bennett (R), who ran for Congress last year in North Carolina, pleaded guilty to a federal campaign finance violation related to a loan from a family member that prosecutors said was falsely portrayed in campaign reports as originating from her own personal funds, the AP reports.

Daily Beast: “When the Federal Elections Commission rejected a recent Freedom of Information Act request related to Donald Trump’s ‘recount’ expenses after the 2020 election, the campaign watchdog had a conspicuous reason for turning down the petition: Trump’s political spending after he left the White House is currently the subject of an FEC enforcement matter.”

The New York Times published lengthy profile of billionaire heiress Elizabeth Koch who described herself as “apolitical,” a claim that the reporter apparently didn’t challenge.

However, Koch has donated tens of thousands to Republican politicians and the Koch Industries PAC.

“Donations from corporate and trade association PACs declined in the 2022 cycle by 10 percent to Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election for President Joe Biden,” Roll Call reports.

“Embattled cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried directed tens of millions of dollars of illegal campaign contributions to elected officials, prosecutors alleged in a new superseding indictment unsealed Thursday in a Manhattan federal court,” NBC News reports.

“Bankman-Fried became one of the biggest Democratic donors in the country during last year’s midterm elections, with a net worth estimated at one point to be greater than $20 billion and dreams of spending up to $1 billion on the 2024 presidential contest.”

“But Bankman-Fried’s political giving was not all it seemed… The indictment accuses Bankman-Fried of directing at least 300 illegal campaign donations, totaling up to $100 million, to both Democrats and Republicans through two other unnamed FTX executives that acted as ‘straw donors‘ to hide the true source of the funds.”

“It wasn’t enough that Herschel Walker’s ill-fated Senate campaign in Georgia had a rough run,” the Daily Beast reports.

“Now the feds want to know more about financial moves the campaign made after Walker lost—including tens of thousands of dollars stashed in a ‘recount’ fund long after Walker had conceded defeat.”

One campaign finance expert said it looked like a “dumping ground for excess contributions.”

“One of George Santos’ first acts as a candidate for Congress in 2019, according to his campaign finance filings, was making a series of four-figure donations from his campaign to a pair of local Republican groups and President Donald Trump’s reelection committee,” Politico reports.

“But according to those groups’ own filings, the contributions were never received — and may not have been donated.”

“The Federal Election Commission is warning Representative George Santos to substantiate who is in charge of his campaign’s finances — or risk a ban on raising or spending any money,” Bloomberg reports.

“The FEC sent a letter to Santos asking him to file paperwork to list the treasurer of his campaign, after his previous one resigned in January. The letter adds to confusion over who’s in charge of the embattled New York Republican’s campaign accounts.”

Meanwhile, CBS News reports police interviewed Santos in a 2017 international case of credit card and identity theft.

Rep. George Santos (R-NY) “has spent his campaign money in plenty of conspicuous ways, from lavish hotel stays in Las Vegas and Palm Beach, Fla., to an unusual slew of payments for exactly $199.99 — two cents below the threshold where receipts would be required,” the New York Times reports.

“But deep within Mr. Santos’s campaign filings, The New York Times found another eye-catching number: $365,399.08 in unexplained spending, with no record of where it went or for what purpose.”

“The mysterious expenditures, which list no recipient and offer no receipts, account for nearly 12 percent of the Santos campaign’s total reported expenses — many times exceeding what is typical for congressional candidates.”

Since he left office, Donald Trump’s various political committees have spent $905,570 at his own properties, the HuffPost reports.

“A federal appeals court said on Wednesday that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison can pursue his investigation into Republican online fundraising giant WinRed over an allegedly deceptive marketing scheme that bilked unwitting donors out of untold amounts of cash,” the Daily Beast reports.

“The GOP’s much-touted, small-dollar fundraising platform WinRed, created in response to the Democratic-aligned ActBlue, lost millions of dollars during the midterm election cycle, according to top Republicans,” the HuffPost reports.

“One Republican familiar with the privately held entity’s finances said it lost about $6 million over 2021 and 2022. A second confirmed the loss but believed the total was not quite that high. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.”

The Federal Election Commission announced that that contribution cap was sizably increasing for this cycle, from $2,900 to $3,300, mainly due to inflation, Politico reports.

A Miami Herald review of Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) campaign spending “in the region raises questions about some of his campaign reports, and about what, exactly, he did here — aside from holding a fundraiser on a yacht in Fort Lauderdale, which event organizers say did happen.”

“The managing partner of a diner where the campaign reported spending more than $200 over back-to-back days said he had no receipts matching items on the campaign reports.”

“A $199.99 stay at the high-end W South Beach hotel — where room rates are typically more than $700 per night — was flagged by the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center in a wide-ranging complaint with the Federal Elections Commission earlier this month as improbable.”

“Even his payments at a public beachside parking lot on Miami Beach, where the campaign listed payments as small as $3 and as big as $100, were deemed puzzling by the city’s parking department.”

“A family friend of Mark Meadows has been charged with accepting an illegal campaign contribution during an ill-fated 2020 run to succeed the former Trump White House chief of staff in Congress,” Politico reports.

“Lynda Bennett, who lost in a 2020 Republican primary campaign to Madison Cawthorn, accepted a contribution from a family member totaling at least $25,000, according to charging paperwork filed by prosecutors.”