The Department of Justice is investigating one of the ballyhooed members of The Squad — four leftist women members of Congress — for misspending campaign funds.
DOJ is investigating Missouri Democrat Cori Bush, apparently because has spent almost $750,000 on private security since 2020 even as she advocates “defunding the police.”
Six sources told Punchbowl News, which revealed the probe on X.
The Probe
The House sergeant at arms received a subpoena for Bush’s records, Punchbowl tweeted, and Bush herself confirmed that she was in trouble.
Bush’s spending tax and campaign money on private security — while she advocates leaving her constituents to the depredations of rapists and murderers — is well known.
Last year, Fox News revealed that Bush used campaign money to pay her husband for “security,” a classic case of self-dealing.
Citing federal campaign spending records, Fox reported that her husband, Courtney Merritts, “pocketed $17,500 for security services and ‘wage expenses’ between April and June. These payments follow the $12,500 that went to him during the first quarter for private security services, bringing his total to $30,000 for the year.”
Continued Fox:
Shortly after Bush and Merritts married in February, her office announced they had been together before she entered Congress in 2021 — more than a year before she added him to her campaign’s payroll in January 2022. Her campaign sent Merritts bi-monthly $2,500 checks totaling $60,000 last year while disbursing hundreds of thousands to the protection firm.
Beyond that, though, Bush also lined the pockets of some top-flight security experts. Aside from spending $62,000 on a company called PEACE Security, her campaign “also paid Nathaniel Davis, who has claimed he’s 109 trillion years old and can summon tornadoes, $27,500 for security services during the first half of the year.”
In 2021, The Daily Caller revealed that the Defund the Police fanatic spent almost more than $30,000 in campaign money to protect herself:
- On Jan. 18, 2021, Bush spent $1,060.00 on security from Whole Armor Executive Protection in Bowie, Maryland.
- On Jan. 21, 2021, Bush spent $5,000 on security from Nathaniel Davis, Jr in her home state.
- On Jan. 25, 2021, Bush spent $530.00 on security from Nathaniel Davis in Palo Alto, Calif.
- On Feb. 17, 2021, Bush spent $7,743.75 on security from RS&T Security Counseling LLC in New York City.
- On Feb. 25, 2021, Bush spent $5,000 on security from Sandler, Reiff, Lamb, Rosenstein & Birk in Washington DC.
- On Feb. 26, 2021, Bush spent $5,812.00 on security from RS&T Security Counseling, LLC in NYC.
- On March 15, 2021, Bush spent $5,000 on security from Nathaniel Davis Davis, in Saint Louis, Missouri.
- On March 15, 2021, Bush spent $2,456.25 on security from RS&T Security Consulting LLC in NYC.
The Caller also reported that Bush spent $880 of office money for private security.
Yet the campaign total is much greater than that, records show. Bush has wasted $756,424 on private security since 2020, data posted to X show. The data match campaign records available at the FEC website.
In confirming the probe, Bush blamed what the Clintons used to call the “vast right-wing conspiracy” for her trouble.
“Since before I was sworn into office, I have endured relentless threats to my physical safety and life,” she said. Bush said she is not entitled to personal security as a “a rank-and-file member of Congress” and that she hasn’t used federal money for security services.
House records show that isn’t true, but anyway, Bush complained that “right-wing organizations have lodged baseless complaints against me” for the lavish spending even though she has followed every jot and tittle of the law.
She also explained why she had to self-deal campaign money to herself through her husband: “I retained my husband as part of my security team to provide security services because he has had extensive experience in this area, and is able to provide the necessary services at or below a fair market rate.”
And despite her ready cooperation with the DOJ and the Federal Election Commission, she said, “I am under no illusion that these right-wing organizations will stop politicizing and pursuing efforts to attack me and the work that the people of St. Louis sent me to Congress to do: to lead boldly, to legislate change my constituents can feel, and to save lives.”
Defund the Police
When CBS News asked her about hiring bodyguards as she advocates taking police off the street, Bush delivered a deranged, paranoid tirade about “white supremacists” who apparently track her every move.
“They would rather I die? You would rather me die? Is that what you want to see? You want to see me die?” she said. “You know, because that could be the alternative. So either I spent $70,000 on private security over the last few months, and I’m here standing now and able to speak, able to help save 11 million people from being evicted. Or — I could possibly have a death attempt on my life.”
Bush complained that she received “death threats,” and said she had “private security because my body is worth being on this planet right now.”
White supremacists — who lurk around every corner — are pushing a “racist narrative” and “they don’t care that this Black woman that has put her life on the line, they can’t match my energy first of all. This Black woman who puts her life on the line.”
As for Defund the Police, in 2020, when former President Barack Obama told leftists to knock off the sloganeering because it alienates normal voters, Bush spanked him on Twitter.
“With all due respect, Mr. President — let’s talk about losing people,” she tweeted:
We lost Michael Brown Jr. We lost Breonna Taylor. We’re losing our loved ones to police violence.
It’s not a slogan. It’s a mandate for keeping our people alive. Defund the police.
The Obama Justice Department cleared policeman Darren Wilson of wrongdoing in Brown’s shooting because Brown tried to kill him.
Taylor was killed in a gun battle between her drug-dealer boyfriend and police. He fired first when they executed a no-knock raid on her apartment. She was part of the boyfriend’s drug-dealing operation.
