Cori Bush Still Using Campaign Cash To Pay Husband, Despite Ongoing Federal Investigation

Democratic Missouri Rep. Cori Bush’s campaign has made several additional payments to her husband despite the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ongoing investigation into previous payments she made to him, new campaign finance filings show.

Bush paid her husband, Cortney Merritts, $15,000 in wages between April 12 and June 30, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. Bush in January confirmed that the DOJ had launched a criminal investigation into the hundreds of thousands of dollars her campaign has spent on security services since 2019, which includes payments her campaign made to Merritts, the New York Times reported.

Federal law bars members of Congress from paying family members to work for them in an official capacity but allows them to pay relatives for “bona fide services to the campaign” so long as the payments are not “in excess of fair market value,” according to NBC News. The Committee to Defeat the President, an organization opposing President Joe Biden, and the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a nonpartisan watchdog group, both filed FEC complaints alleging that Bush’s payment violated federal law.

“It appears Rep. Bush’s campaign may have made payments for services that were unnecessary or above fair market value because of her personal relationship with the payee,” FACT wrote in its March FEC complaint. “If so, these payments would qualify as either impermissible payments to a family member or an impermissible gift.”