Oregon Dems say they'll turn $500k over to U.S. Marshals

Yesterday, the Democratic Party of Oregon said in a statement they will scrounge up $500k in response to April 13 U.S. DOJ request arising from illegal donation.

Remember the good times.

The Democratic Party of Oregon said yesterday afternoon it would turn $500,000, the sum given it by former FTX executive Nishad Singh in October 2022, over to the U.S. Marshals Service at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, according to The Oregonian. The Oregon Secretary of State last month fined the DPO $15,000 for originally reporting the donor as Living Trust LLC and amending to show Singh as a donor after the deadline to do so. The Oregon Department of Justice says it is considering a criminal investigation into the DPO related to the donation.

The DPO announced that it will also turn over to marshals the $7,100 it received out of $10,000 FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried donated to another Democrat-aligned PAC, the Oregon Victory Fund. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden says he will turn over to U.S. Marshalls the $2,900 his campaign received from the Bankman-Fried donation to Oregon Victory Fund, according to The Oregonian.

As first reported here at the Oregon Roundup, Senator Wyden’s fundraising consultant brokered Singh’s $500,000 donation to the DPO. The consultant was introduced to an agent for FTX and Singh as “all things Ron Wyden” in an email about the donation. A Wyden spokesman told The Oregonian Wyden’s office “played no role in brokering the donation to the state party[.]”

The DPO, which state campaign finance reporting shows as having a little less than $132,000 on hand as of this morning, said via press release that it would receive the funds needed to cough up the full $507,100 from Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), U.S. Representatives Susan Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer and Val Hoyle (Ds-OR). Today’s cash-on-hand amount apparently includes a $100,000 donation Kotek made yesterday, according to state records.

Now that’s a Friday afternoon news dump. The DPO says it’s been working on turning the funds over to the appropriate federal authorities since Singh pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud charges in January. It says U.S. DOJ asked it to fork over the money back on April 13. The stars aligned yesterday, for some reason.

That reason? Well, note the tone in The Oregonian’s article:

In fact, the party was already caught in a controversy of its own making over the historically large contribution from a company that had little to gain by influencing Oregon’s state politics, but would certainly want to curry favor with members of Congress in a position to influence cryptocurrency regulation.

Democrats’ heavy hitters like Kotek and Wyden are likely hoping the repayment will get an embarrassing albatross off their backs.

Or as I put it June 4:

Wyden, probably the most powerful member of Congress on cryptocurrency issues and an acknowledged champion of the industry, helped, at the very least via his paid fundraising contractor, steer to the DPO a $500,000 donation that dwarfed the maximum Singh or any other FTX executive could have lawfully made directly to Wyden’s congressional campaign.

The return of the DPO donation does not end this saga. The Oregon DOJ and/or the U.S. DOJ should investigate potential criminality on the part of the DPO. Wyden’s apparent involvement - at least via the invocation of his name - in brokering the donation cries out for further inquiry. All of the involved players would very much like this matter to have been resolved with this Friday news dump.

It’s not resolved.

As a kind of unofficial anthology of the $500,000 donation and related issues, here are links to all the pieces I’ve written about it since January 18, in chronological order:

“Oregon Dems’ Ticking Timebomb” January 18

“So much for faith in Democracy” February 20

“Taking Fagan Files to the Attorney General” February 23

“Singh Sings” March 5

“Wyden received Bankman-Fried family money for over a decade” March 16

“Wyden still hasn’t returned that crypto donation” April 16

“Fagan’s stalled, conflicted investigation into record-breaking Democrat donation” April 24

“OR Sec State Fagan’s crypto donation probe team scrambled to placate Democratic Party of Oregon” April 28

“Fixing Fagan’s Foibles” May 3

“Injustice Redefined” May 15

“DOJ lawyer said no basis for reducing Sec State fine against Dems” May 21

“Oregon DOJ should initiate a criminal investigation into the DPO” May 24

“Wyden consultant brokered FTX executive’s $500,000 donation to Oregon Democrats” May 30

“Oregon Dems face new campaign finance, settlement agreement challenges” June 4