Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks refutes claims of campaign finance misconduct

LANHAM, Maryland — Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic hopeful running for Senate in Maryland, pushed back on allegations she flouted campaign finance laws after being hit with a Federal Election Commission complaint earlier this week.

Americans for Public Trust filed its FEC complaint alleging finance violations by Alsobrooks for spending roughly $18,000 on fundraising expenses from her state campaign committee tied to her role as executive of Prince George’s County after launching her Senate campaign in May 2023.

On Friday, during a campaign stop in Lanham, Maryland, Alsobrooks did not address the merits of the complaint but told the Washington Examiner, “It’s all bogus,” and instead accused the Virginia-based nonprofit group of being connected to former President Donald Trump.

“How could we be surprised that this watchdog group connected to Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump that endorsed Larry Hogan yesterday, is trying to find some way to attack me based on false information? We’re not surprised,” she said.

Alsobrooks is facing Republican Larry Hogan, the former two-term governor, in the general election. Hogan, for his part, has said he won’t vote for Trump come November.

In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, Americans for Public Trust said Alsobrooks was trying to “distract from the legitimate scrutiny of her campaign.”

“APT is an independent, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) that has filed complaints against Republicans and Democrats,” founder and Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland said. “Ms. Alsobrooks has decided to launch unsubstantiated allegations to distract from the legitimate scrutiny of her campaign while failing to offer any evidence that our complaint is inaccurate. We look forward to the FEC’s forthcoming investigation into the matter.”

Annie Talley, the nonprofit group’s president and secretary, does have past connections to Trump’s orbit, having served in his administration from 2017 to 2018.

“It’s illegal for a candidate to use pre-existing state campaign funds to jumpstart their race for federal office,” Sutherland said in announcing their FEC complaint. “Publicly available information suggests this is precisely what Ms. Alsobrooks did, and a pattern of payments like this absolutely warrants an FEC investigation.”

The Alsobrooks campaign has denied state campaign funds were used for her Senate bid and said money paid to a consulting firm was “part of a regular cadence of payments” to the company, “which has handled her county campaign fundraising, compliance, and consulting for years, for services rendered prior to her federal campaign launch and solely in connection with state campaign committee activity.”

Alsobrooks’s state campaign paid $18,000 to Rice Consulting, which bills itself as “Maryland’s top fundraising firm for Democrats and organizations.” But the state campaign committee raised just $560 last year.

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A roughly $17,000 payment from Alsobrooks’s state committee to Rice Consulting for fundraising expenses was made in June 2023 on the same day a fundraiser reportedly raised $125,000 for her Senate bid was hosted by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.

“The only disbursements made by Ms. Alsobrooks’ committees during this period that could be construed or categorized as ‘fundraising expenses’ appear on Ms. Alsobrooks’ state-level campaign committee reports,” the FEC complaint said. “In fact, a search of the FEC database indicates that Alsobrooks for Senate did not make a single disbursement for ‘fundraising’ until June 30, 2023, and only after hundreds of thousands of dollars had been raised in support of her U.S. Senate campaign.”