Gun control activist David Hogg has been hit with allegations over the spending practices of his group Leaders We Deserve PAC. Conservative outlets are reporting that the group spent comparably little on actual candidates as opposed to travel and expenses. His prior counsel is a familiar name in such controversies in Washington: former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias.
Hogg created a group in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections to elect Generation Z politicians to offices throughout the country. The group was given favorable national coverage in major media outlets. He explained that contributions would be used to elect young Democrat candidates:
“[We’re] trying to pick them and say, you know, we would like to help you run for office, we’ll supply you with all of the resources that you need and help basically coach you and hold your hand to get there, which is kind of the gap that’s in the space right now, for at least young people at the state legislative level.”
Federal filings reportedly show that year-end 2023, Leaders We Deserve raised over $3 million. That is impressive for its first year in operation.
The conservative sites allege that the group spent “only about $263,000 on its stated mission of electing candidates from Generation Z to office combined with donations to other Democrat Party committees and groups—and instead spent more than $1.4 million on disbursements to themselves for payroll and to political consulting firms and legal fees, in addition to travel and entertainment expenses like hotels, flights, and meals.”
However, it reportedly spent more than $1,314,000 on travel and related expenses while giving $80,000 to the Elias Law Group.
Previously, when allegations of self-dealing and accounting improprieties were raised with regard to Black Lives Matter, the group’s attorney, Elias, immediately stood out for many. Elias resigned from his “key role” with BLM as the scandal exploded.
Elias’s name has now again popped up in the controversy involving Hogg, who is accused of raising millions to support liberal candidates but allegedly spending only $263,000 on such candidates while paying $83,000 to the Elias law firm. (These figures are reportedly from federal filings but neither Elias nor Hogg have specifically addressed the media reports).
Elias has long been a controversial figure, including being sanctioned in court. He was named as the key figure in hiding the funding of the Steele dossier by the Clinton campaign, which led later to a FEC fine. Reporters accused the campaign of lying to them about the funding. Elias was also reportedly with campaign chair John Podesta when he allegedly denied such funding to congressional investigators.
Despite accusing the GOP of election denial and manipulation, Elias was also involved in alleged gerrymandering efforts and challenging the outcome of elections based on alleged problems with voting machine tallies.
Back to the most recent controversy, Hogg could argue that, as a well known activist figure, his travel to these campaigns is the boost that the group promised donors. He is the assistance. Likewise, the group could argue that it is still getting ramped up for greater spending efforts in the fall. As for the legal fees, the group could argue that start up legal fees and reporting fees tend to be higher at the outset.
The controversy does raise some novel questions about the purpose of contributions. Hogg coming to a local campaign is likely to generate media attention for a candidate. He can also claim that he and his staff bring needed expertise and advice to novice or young candidates. That could be their interpretation of the promise to “basically coach you and hold your hand to get there.” Critics are focused on the pitch to “supply you with all of the resources that you need.”
The group is only the latest political or business effort launched by Hogg, who previously tried to start a “progressive pillow company” before stepping away from the enterprise.
You lay down with Hogg, you wake up poorer. The donors knew that.
@mespo
I appreciate your candor, but you don’t seem to realize that he might actually succeed in getting more of these infant trolls elected to *your* government. It’s worth paying attention to. This is your future voting bloc, and they are showing you their preferences in realtime. Anyone that is thinking there will be some kind of magical course correction needs to abandon that, get off their a**es, and vote against these little fascists. Sitting around ruminating and purporting superiority will accomplish exactly zero. You always speak truth in your comments, in 3D space, we probably are on the precipice between continued freedom and the opposite in November. And the kids you and I criticize really do not understand this isn’t a cosplay game, they really don’t. Pick your priorities.
LOL — so says the Anti-Dennis — every bit as stupid as Dennis, but with a different stupid agenda.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
____________________________
David Hogg, Marc Elias, Christopher Steele, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and all communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) in America are the direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Americans, and America.
Know the enemy.
Sigh. You thought ‘The Squad’ was bad? Brace yourselves, because you ain’t seen nothing yet. The democratic party is going to *literally* be a clown show with children in charge in the future. Stop just accepting it, unless you’d like to see more fire alarms pulled and screaming on the floor. Nip this in the bud folks – refuse to vote for these infants, and do it in numbers that actually matter.
Once again: CHAZ was your preview of how well-oiled that machine would be; decide if that is something you’d like to live with and act accordingly. These generations are going to be a burden on the rest of us until the day they die, and it would not surprise me, given their abject ignorance, if they go before us. and no, it isn’t just de rigueur youthful naiveté, these generations truly are like nothing we’ve ever seen before, and it will likely never get better with them in any meaningful way.
And it will fail – just as the Biden admin has failed – because these children are incapable of cleaning their rooms, much less running the country.
The grift never ends.
If you are upset by this election advocacy group spending $80,000 on election-related legal fees, I imagine you would be appalled to hear which election groups have paid more than $50 million and counting for various Trump legal fees.
Which ones were funded via tax dollars through NGOs and otherwise – those are the ones that must end.
To be fair, all those midwit attorneys around the beltway have to pay for their divorces, so they need the money.
@Foust
It isn’t about dollars and the nuance sees to be lost on you. Pfft. You deserve the society you are creating; the rest of us who have acted responsibly don’t, and we won’t accept it. This is going to be a hard truth for some going forward, as the tide turns. If TDS hasn’t completely destroyed what you used to call a brain: wake up and realize we are dealing with something bigger. Or continue to be a comfortable toad until comfort is no longer a possibility, even for the rich. How can any grown person possibly continue to be this callous? And if you are a paid troll, how can anyone think we are this stupid? Take it back to where it originated. You hold the amount of sway that a gastric malfunction does. Forgotten in seconds. The legacy modern liberals are foisting upon us, no, that will not fade, and we will not relent. And the likes of you don’t seem to get that. You seem to not have a conscience, heart, or soul. The rest of us do.
James,
Well said.
Get government out of it, and let people decide on their own.
Give your money to Trump or to Hogg or keep it, your choice.
I would note the issue is not Elias’s legal fees. It is that the money directed to the actual purpose of the organization is only 3 times larger than the legal fees.
That and the fact that Elias continues to show up wherever left wing nuts are being duped.
Regardless, There does not appear to be any crime here.
And if Donors do not wish to sue and wish to continue to donate – that is fine.
Just as people are free to buy golden sneakers and bibles from Trump.
Porn stars are free to take money for their services, or their silence.
Free to loan money to him – for mortgages or bonds, and none of this is the business of the courts, or politically biased prosecutors.
Or we can just sic the Republican equivalent of Leticia James on Hogg and Elias and see if we can bankrupt them in some deep red state.
My understanding is that nonprofits and/or charities are required to report, or at least make available, detailed financial reports, i.e., budget and expenditures, not simply amounts raised. Albeit clearly not charities, do similar rules apply to PACs?
“We’ll help you get elected, Gen Zers”: sounds like a rehash of the modeling/acting school/agency scams which have targeted young people and their families for years.
.
David Hogg net worth, $7.33 million
https://peopleai.com/fame/identities/david-hogg-activist
LOL — someone here suggested that Hogg is being taken advantage of by Joetard. If so, being taken advantage of appears to be a lucrative enterprise these days.
Someone wrote earlier: Hogg is a classic dilettante
Hogg is a debutante who loves to suck up the oxygen in the room where ever she goes. Hogg would make an excellent Media Matters troll ala Ralph de Metamucil
Is that you again, “Tom”?
Has there ever been a more accurate representation of Ayn Rand’s fictional James Taggert than David Hoggs?
Craig Richards said: “Has there ever been a more accurate representation of Ayn Rand’s fictional James Taggert than David Hoggs?”
I heartily dislike Hogg, but you are way off base with that analogy. James Taggart was the archetype of a corporatist: a business leader who relies on government cronyism and favoratism, as contrasted with individual talent and initiative, to succeed in the marketplace. In the muck and mire that pathetically passes for a “free market” in the US today, you could take your pick of hundreds of Fortune-listed CEOs who precisely match that desription. By that yardstick, Hogg doesn’t even come close to measuring up.
This is after he tried to become the left-wing My Pillow guy, but ‘backed out.’
Hard to be mad at this child, his dad is fbi and mom is public school administration – he may literally have never heard a true word in his life.
It is a grift. Most political non-profits are. They raise millions of dollars, then pay themselves six figure salaries and to family members, legal fees, travel, meals etc. One of the best known grifts, I mean non-profits, was the Clinton Foundation.
The Clinton foundation is still working, the Trump Foundation was closed by court order.
So the Clinton grift continues.
Yes, A private trust having nothing to do with the ordinary public was shutdown for non-failures.
While a public grift, that was involved in a pay for play scheme of public corruption continues today.
Do you think that proving political biased lawfare makes you look less corrupt ?
Clinton was engaged in EXACTLY the same conduct as the Biden’s – just on a far larger scale with far more of our “enemies”
Clinton was wise – Unlike Joe, and call it a charity. So no dummy shell corporations, No secret money transfers.
All upfront public “donations” – and Like Hogg, then you use the Charity to pay for your own luxurious lifestyle, travel, parties, speaking fees, lobbying, ….
Look; we, who care, already know just how rotten the prog/left is (a fish rots from the head and look who is charge of this party/ideology) don’t need to discuss that fact. What we need do is stand tall and reject all rinos and corrupt democrats. (I still don’t know who would vote for menendez at this point but they there will be some). Until there is total control of both houses and the white house for a good 8+ years there will be no hope of stopping any of this. Face it, we have boxed ourselves into this mess by sitting back and tsk tsking about how awful the prog/left was but taking no action other than electing Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. The change in partisan control over all government agencies from Reagan to Trump should be a warning to us as to the lethal depths of control that the progs have over this nation.
“…we have boxed ourselves into this mess … taking no action other than electing Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.” While certainly true, what else could we have done when otherwise good, honest, and not-yet-corrupted-by-politics people will not seek elective offices? The few that do get torn to shreds by legacy media. You can hardly blame voters for not having better people willing to run, take the media arrows, and giving The People a candidate worth voting for.
I suppose, then, we need begin at the root of our problems, the source of the indoctrinations – our university systems and reform them. How to do that; start with their funding. ANYONE, I don’t care how much you loved your alma mater as it was when you attended that institution, must stop giving them a penny as their are now just a source of poison now, reclaim all endowment monies also. This includes, aside from the government, their other sources of income – their collegiate sports programs. Stop paying to watch their games, stop attending their events. Next, cut them off at the knees by pulling the plug on ALL government monies any way they reach the universities – grants, studies etc and especially student aid; there you are just using your tax dollars to poison the minds of the not so smart student body that will use what they have been taught to scream that they hate American whenever their puppet masters tell them to. If we really want to save this nation we must fumigate it from top to bottom of all the progressive/socialis/marxist/howard zinn ideas that have poisoned half of this nation while we sat back and did nothing.
We need to begin at home – with parents.
WE have raised more than one generation of coddled toddlers. This is our fault.
Schools colleges and universities did what we asked.
They baby sat our kids and fed them nonsense – participation trophies.
We should not be surprised that kids who were never allowed to skinned their knees are racked with anxiety and depression.
I’m shocked!…NOT!
This is the WH taking advantage of little kids like Hogg and the Peter kid expelled from Vanderbilt this week. Both little kids are photographed with Biden as they are so easily impressed with the trappings of power that they then go on to believe they are important and do less than intelligent things to support the regime.
Just today I have seen the picture accompanying this column and a picture of the kid expelled from Vanderbilt with Joe Biden. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t taken on the same day. Just imagine the WH lining up about 20 kids for photo day and running them through like a conveyor belt of unsophistication. “Ok, bring in the next teenager for us to snowball”.
“Ok, bring in the next teenager for us to snowball”.
LOL — Hogg has been “snowballed” to the point that his “activism” appears to have netted him $7.33
https://peopleai.com/fame/identities/david-hogg-activist
That sort of raises the age-old question: Who’s snowballing who?
* make that $7.33 MILLION
Anonymous, you make a good point. Maybe they are both snowballing each other. Two useless fools, one 81 and one 23 and both without a clue but being lefties they have both made millions. So I guess we are the fools.
“. . . novel questions about the purpose of contributions.” (JT)
Same as with BLM:
To live high on the hog.
Marc Elias, sort of like the dead fish that floats to the surface of nearly every polluted political pool. With the accompanying stench.
When will Elias be disbarred?
any non-profit where anyone gets $100k+ should be taxed!
Do these number$ include donations from Sam Bankman-Fried and Barbara Fried?
At some point there was some ≈100 Million [=/-] in crypto donations from SBF & Mama Fried going around.
Who knows how much is circulating this election cycle. Maybe Rep. Maxine Waters knows.
-TRA
Hogg is a classic dilettante.
His only skill is posturing. Knowledge? None that is discernible.
Always suspected Hogg and his talent of seeking to be in the news and at the right places. Then you had in Elias? it all smells