The Wisconsin Ethics Commission has initiated an investigation into Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign. The probe is centered on accusations of money laundering and fraud. These allegations could have far-reaching implications within the state, as reported by Dan O’Donnell, a talk radio host and editor of Common Sense Central.
“A complaint accuses the campaign of ‘smurfing’–the illegal practice of laundering big money donations through unaware small-dollar donors,” he wrote.
“The total amount identified to date of illegally laundering money into Janet For Justice’s campaign comes to $1,038,705.93,” the complaint, which was filed earlier this month by Election Watch, alleged. “It appears individuals, or those being smurfed, are largely used to aggregate mostly less than the $200 reporting limit of individuals to avoid detection.”
O’Donnell notes further:
According to Investopedia, smurfing (named after popular cartoon characters) is “a money-laundering technique involving structuring large amounts of cash into multiple small transactions. Smurfs often spread these small transactions over many different accounts, to keep them under regulatory reporting limits and avoid detection.”
Election Watch claimed in its complaint to have identified thousands of ultra-small-dollar donations made in the names of hundreds of mostly elderly donors, none of whom had any idea that they had made such donations when a private investigator asked about them.
“The Federal Election Commission states the average number of political donations an individual makes, if donating, is 1.4 per year,” says the complaint against Janet for Justice. “239 [donors] donated more than 10 times [each] to Janet for Justice.”
An alleged example of smurfing involves an 84-year-old man residing in Whitewater. He made contributions totaling $856.75 to Janet for Justice, distributing these contributions across 71 separate transactions, some as small as $1.67 each. According to Federal Election Commission data, this donor has made an astonishing 15,620 separate donations, amounting to $62,410.01, over the past three election cycles, as highlighted by O’Donnell.
“He did not make anywhere near these number of contributions or dollar amounts,” said Election Watch, noting that the man confirmed all of that to a private investigator.
Another individual suspected of smurfing is a 70-year-old woman from Sturgeon Bay. She contributed $58.50 to Janet for Justice through a series of small donations over three months earlier this year. Her donation pattern, as described in the complaint, raised concerns due to its unusual nature. For instance, on January 3rd, she made a $3.33 donation, followed by a separate $6 donation later on the same day. She continued with a $3 donation on January 23rd, and then a $12 donation, as reported by O’Donnell.
“She was interviewed, and she also denied making these volumes of donations,” says the complaint.
“There are thousands of irregularities that need to be investigated in the Janet for Justice campaign…that amount to thousands if not millions of fraudulent monies,” Election Watch noted in its complaint. “The campaign potentially [committed] several state and federal crimes, including, but not limited to, [violating] Wisconsin campaign finance laws. Also, federal and state misappropriation of funds.”
Election Watch, in partnership with the O’Keefe Media Group, founded by former Project Veritas journalist James O’Keefe, has been conducting an extensive investigation into smurfing activities across the United States over the past several months. They assert that they have identified more than 10,000 potential cases of smurfing, spread across every state in the nation.
“The organization has planned to file additional complaints with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission over alleged smurfing activity in several other statewide campaigns,” O’Donnell wrote.
