What do more than $3 million in political advertisements, a left-wing Texan sex therapist running for Congress and a Wyoming business have in common?
All have ties to a newly formed super PAC making national headlines for appearing to boost long-shot Democratic congressional candidates in midterm primary elections to ease the way for Republican victories in November’s general election.
In the last two weeks, Lead Left PAC has reported spending more than $3 million on political ads in the battleground states of Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Texas, Federal Election Commission records show. It’s not clear who the political action committee’s donors are, but it’s spent big on advertising with a recently created Wyoming company.
Some of the PAC’s ads have backed Maureen Galindo, a congressional candidate in Texas whose party leadership has condemned her for making antisemitic comments. Galindo faces Johnny Garcia in the runoff for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 35th Congressional District, which is located in the San Antonio area. The district was redrawn by Texas Republicans to boost their party’s chances of holding onto the seat in this year’s midterms.
Still, despite redistricting, Democrats believe the seat could remain competitive if their party has a strong year politically, and they’re eager to avoid being saddled with a candidate’s inflammatory rhetoric.
So, who’s backing Lead Left with heaps of money? FEC records don’t say. The PAC was created recently enough that it has not yet had to disclose any of its donors. In the meantime, Democrats are crying foul, accusing Republicans of bankrolling Lead Left to meddle in their primary elections. The New York Times reported evidence of such potential links earlier this month.
The PAC’s website — set against Wyoming’s most famous mountain range — bills itself as “against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump’s agenda.”
One paper trail, however, ties the PAC’s spending directly to Piruzi LLC, a newly registered Wyoming business.
Since May 7, Lead Left has reported 11 independent expenditures with the FEC, totalling more than $3 million in ads. All but two of those reports indicate the PAC paid Piruzi LLC for media production and placements, as well as printing and mailing political advertisements.
Wyoming Secretary of State records indicate that Piruzi filed to become a limited liability company on April 10. Piruzi’s filings list a Cheyenne address and Tammie Cannon as the LLC’s organizer, along with a phone number and email for Paracorp Incorporated, a nationwide registered agent company. Reached by phone Thursday, two representatives for Paracorp told WyoFile it did not employ a Tammie Cannon but offered to forward a message to the owners of Piruzi.
Wyoming’s business regulations provide a high degree of privacy as the law does not require a company to disclose its members or managers, effectively allowing the owner to remain anonymous to the public. The laws have helped produce the “cowboy cocktail,” a sophisticated wealth-protection strategy that combines the privacy of LLC ownership with a Wyoming trust. The state has also become a popular jurisdiction for shell companies, which are inactive legal entities with no significant assets.
Shell companies are sometimes used as vehicles for illicit activity, which is what the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan DC-based nonprofit, argues in a FEC complaint filed May 14 against Lead Left PAC.
“In addition to strategically gaming federal reporting deadlines to avoid disclosing the sources of its election spending, Lead Left also appears to have violated federal campaign finance laws requiring full transparency about the recipients of that spending,” the complaint states. “Specifically, by funneling all of its spending on political ads through two newly formed companies that are almost certainly not the ultimate recipients of those funds, Lead Left appears to have violated federal reporting requirements.” (Emphasis in the complaint.)
The other LLC named by Lead Left in its filings is OTG Media, which was incorporated in Virginia on April 29, according to the state records.
In “using these apparent shell companies as opaque clearinghouses to conceal who is actually being paid to provide it with goods and services, Lead Left PAC has unlawfully denied voters crucial information about how it is spending the money,” the complaint states.
The FEC is unlikely to take swift, material action on the complaint, according to news site NOTUS, because the agency has gone more than a year without the required number of commissioners to formalize investigations or penalize campaign-finance scofflaws.
Meanwhile, shadowy PACs have become more common in contemporary campaigns, including some in the Mountain West. One political action committee in Montana has fueled speculation after it sent out ads on behalf of underdog Democrats, Montana Free Press reported earlier this month.
The Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment by publishing time.
The email address provided by Lead Left PAC in its FEC filings bounced back an email Thursday when WyoFile reached out for comment.
Reporting contributed by The Associated Press. Mike Catalani reported from New Jersey.
