"As we exclusively reported Friday night, Rep. Ted Lieu, who constantly berates those who aren’t following “the science” and is in favor of every totalitarian mandate and lockdown California “public health” officials promulgate, took his elderly parents..."
"on a cruise to Bermuda for Thanksgiving, then traveled to Hawaii for Christmas, and went to an NFL game at Los Angeles’ Sofi Stadium *maskless* with his wife and brother in October."
"Yet, he filed a “proxy letter” with the Clerk of the House of Representatives for the week of January 10, stating that he couldn’t travel to Washington DC due to the “ongoing public health emergency.”
"Well, it turns out that he filed five of those proxy letters in 2021, including one covering the time he went to Bermuda for Thanksgiving and just before the October 10 NFL game between his hometown Cleveland Browns and the Los Angeles Chargers that he attended."
"That’s right. The “ongoing public health emergency” prevented him from traveling to do his taxpayer-funded job, but it didn’t prevent him from flying to New York City,"
"traveling from the airport to the cruise terminal, and then sailing to Bermuda on a floating petri dish with his 80-year-old mother and 77-year-old father, and it didn’t prevent him from going to a professional sporting event with 70,237 other people – while maskless."
"The House was in session the entire week of November 15, and on November 23 and 26 (Tuesday and Friday of Thanksgiving week). Even though Lieu filed his proxy letter with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on November 17,"
"he must have filed it after that day’s business ended since we know that Lieu attended the November 17 session in person (probably because he wanted to vote to censure Rep. Paul Gosar). "
"Apparently the Build Back Better Act wasn’t as important, since Lieu was absent on Thursday the 18th and Friday the 19th, when the House passed the Build Back Better Act. Lieu’s vote is counted as a yea, but House records show it was cast by his proxy, Rep. Don Beyer."
"The House was also in session when Lieu was in Hawaii, which was sometime around December 22, according to his own December 29, 2021 tweet. There’s no indication that Lieu was performing any official duties in Hawaii from his social media."
"While Lieu was traveling by airplane for luxurious family vacations, we know from his numerous proxy letters he wasn’t traveling to his job in Washington, DC much last fall."
"You wouldn’t know that by looking at Lieu’s campaign account, though, since he spent quite a bit on airplane tickets in 2021 – far more than he did in 2020 – including some odd expenditures around the time that the cruise likely would have been booked."
"(While the government pays for a lot of Congressional travel to/from DC, Members also use campaign funds for that travel.) In fact, in 2020, from the time shutdowns really started (3/15) through the end of that year, Lieu’s campaign spent less than $2,000 on airfare"
"In 2021, though, Lieu’s campaign spent more than $20,000 on airfare just in the first nine months of the year, and $8,600 of that was spent on one day – August 3, 2021."
"In light of Lieu’s apparent reluctance to travel because of the pandemic and the fact that it wasn’t really a busy time in terms of campaign activity, that level of spending really sticks out."
"For contrast, Lieu’s buddy Rep. Adam Schiff, whose Los Angeles district borders Ted’s, spent around $6,000 on airfare during the same period om 2021."
"But, hypothetically speaking, flying six people (i.e., Mrs. Lieu and the two children, Ted’s parents, and Ted’s brother) from California to New York, roundtrip, around Thanksgiving for the family cruise could get a little pricey – and the time frames line up."
"Celebrity’s Bermuda cruises were a limited-run series of week-long voyages either from Boston or New York City, running from late August through the Thanksgiving week cruise the Lieus were on."
"The series was announced on a luxury travel blog on July 15, just over two weeks before the airfare expenditures were recorded."
"The FEC forms for the airfare expenditures ($2,000 each to Delta and United, and $600 to Alaska Airlines) don’t list passengers, date of travel, the cities traveled to/from, or the purpose of the trip, so it’s impossible to know if they’re for a permissible campaign expense"
"There’s no direct evidence that these were the plane tickets purchased by Lieu’s campaign on August 3, 2021, but considering what we know about how Lieu has used campaign contributions before (to help pay off his wife’s alleged campaign debt"
"and “charitable” contributions to his alma mater, Stanford, where his oldest son is now a student), the time frames, and the lack of detail/explanation on Lieu’s FEC filings, the question must be asked."
"Were these expenditures for personal use or not? Lieu’s treasurer should have the necessary information to answer that question."
cc: @OfficeGovEthics
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