Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), a first-term House member bent on placing President Donald Trump’s face on the $100 bill, appears to have violated a federal financial law by improperly disclosing up to a half-million dollars in Bitcoin purchases.

As Dave Levinthal reports, Gill made separate Bitcoin purchases of between $100,001 and $250,000 on Jan. 29 and Feb. 27, according to a signed disclosure he submitted to the House of Representatives on Monday.

But Gill disclosed both trades weeks after a 45-day disclosure deadline mandated by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. The STOCK Act was designed to curb insider trading and conflicts of interest among members of Congress.

Long-time Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ congressional campaign violated several federal campaign finance laws, OpenSecrets' Dave Levinthal was the first to report. She must pay a sizable fine, according to newly published Federal Election Commission investigation documents.

The Californian’s 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, understated contributions and expenditures by hundreds of thousands of dollars, accepted $19,000 worth of excessive contributions and made $7,000 worth of “prohibited cash disbursements” from a petty cash fund, the FEC concluded.

Following the FEC’s ruling, the Waters campaign agreed to pay a $68,000 fine and “send its treasurer to a Commission-sponsored training program for political committees.”

The FEC’s bipartisan, 4-0 vote took place on April 29, just before the agency entered a period of de facto shutdown when Republican Commissioner Allen Dickerson stepped down after the expiration of his term and the agency found itself with too few commissioners to legally conduct high-level agency business. 

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Judge tosses Democratic committees' lawsuit over the Federal Election Commission's independence (The Washington Post)

Watchdog Challenges Relaxed FEC Rules on Coordination (Campaigns & Elections)

Tuberville raises more than $3 million in first week of campaign for governor (Alabama Daily News)

Louisiana political campaigns might get to withhold more donation, spending info (Louisiana Illuminator)

Maxine Waters campaign to pay $68K for violating campaign finance laws (Fox News)

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) said the longtime House lawmaker's 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, ran afoul of several campaign finance laws in a tranche of documents released Friday. ... The new movements in the probe were first reported by OpenSecrets.  

‘You have to do everything:’ Harvard’s high-powered D.C. lobbyists an essential part of plan to counter Trump (The Boston Globe)

Lobbying has long been a billion-dollar business in Washington, with spending totals continuing to climb each year. Overall spending on federal lobbyists topped $1.2 billion in the first three months of the new Trump administration, according to the database OpenSecrets. That total was $867 million in the same period during the first Trump administration.

Power Play (Bloomberg Government)

“There’s been a noticeable increase in spending in the higher education area,” said Dan Auble, senior researcher at the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.org, which tracks money in politics and lobbying. “We’ve seen a lot of new registrations. This sector is beefing up their presence.” 

Trump pulls Musk associate's nomination for NASA administrator (Axios)

Isaacman donated to Democrats as recently as 2024, records from nonprofit campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets show. 

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