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Mar 19, 2024 28 tweets 9 min read Read on X
⚡️Campaign Finance🧵: Adam Kinzinger

Have you ever wondered what becomes of socially awkward politicians with no marketable skills, aside from crying on cue, when they are gerrymandered out of public office?

Better yet, do you ever wonder what happens to all the leftover campaign $$ they bilked out of pussy-hat wearing cat ladies in the name of saving our Democracy™?

If the answer is yes, this one’s for you!
Prior to finding fame in the J6 fallout, the most remarkable thing about Mr. Kinzinger was just how unremarkable his congressional career had been.

Despite representing the reddest district in IL Kinzinger prided himself on being a bipartisan stooge at every turn.
He co-authored a few pieces of legislation, notably the 2016 Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, aimed at “stoping Russian interference into our elections” but that’s about it.
His fundraising efforts were decent but never excessive (using Congress’ standard). In his first 5 terms in office, Mr. Kinzinger never raised (green) more than $2.45 million (2020) across all of his campaign committees and he never spent (yellow) more than $2.53 million (2018).
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However, as we all know, America was changed forever on that fateful day in January, 2021. Our Democracy™ was threatened and the burden to save it had fallen on the shoulders of men like Adam Kinzinger.

First step towards saving Democracy™? Opening a second JFC.
Unfortunately the Illinois state legislature had other plans & in Spring 2021 they redrew the IL district lines combining 2 R districts into 1. Rather than get into a grueling primary w the other Republican, Kinzinger announced on Oct 29, 2021 that he would not seek re-election.
Now normally this would be the end of the story; no re-election means no more campaign fundraising. Time to wrap it up and move along to K Street with all the other washed up politicians whoring themselves out to the highest special interest bidder.
But curiously enough, that’s not where our story ends. In fact, that’s where it just gets started. You see, Mr. Kinzinger had found himself quite the lucrative niche role to play in American politics following January 6: Republican Man of Conscience®
How lucrative, you ask? Well for the 2022 cycle Mr. Kinzinger tripled his previous record raising $6,728,851 across all committees. This, despite not running for reelection!

Wait. How was the even possible?

Behold the power of campaign committees! Image
10 days after announcing his retirement Kinzinger converted his new JFC into a Leadership PAC.

Now, he was free to continue raising $ in the name of saving Democracy™ by soliciting $ under the guise of helping Country First Patriots™ win elections across America!
So did he? Not exactly…

Despite raising $6.7 million in the 2022 cycle, Kinzinger gave only abt $140k across all committees to other candidates.

TBF: he needed to pay for the airplane hanger he was keeping his new plane in.


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Yes friends, it appears you can not only bill your campaign to store your personal airplane, but you can also reimburse yourself for the miles you flew that plane (when conducting the business of your Leadership PAC, of course 😉)
Naturally no Republican campaign expenditure list would be complete without AT LEAST $1.5 million in consulting fees.

But hold on… Mr. Kinzinger wasn’t running a campaign… so why did he need $1.75 million in consulting?
Furthermore, why did Kinzinger’s Leadership PAC buy his campaign committee a new “campaign vehicle” a month before he left office?

Uhhh… HELLO FEC! Anyone home?!

Anyone care to check what happened to the *other* campaign car Kinzinger had? You know, the one he bought in 2020?
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Then there’s the clubs… can’t forget the clubs! You see, when you become a Republican Man of Conscience® you get invited to join ALL the swanky DC social clubs… but it ain’t cheap
Kinzinger billed his principal campaign $25,000 for his membership to Capitol Hill Club.

And another $40,000 fee to join the “Former Members of Congress Club”

$65,000 in membership dues to private clubs… weird… I could’ve sworn the FEC said this was a no-no?

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So clearly Kinzinger was living it up in his last year in office… but what happened next?

Well despite his wild spending sprees, Mr. Kinzinger still left office with a LOT of money leftover.

$3,344,001 to be exact

(He came into the 2022 cycle with $1.5 million on hand) Image
Turns out those nationally televised, prime time hearings he & his staff scripted and directed were quite a hit with donor crowd because the money never seemed to stop flowing for Mr. Kinzinger. It’s truly impressive.
First step when leaving office with $2.4 million still in your principal campaign committee? Convert that committee into another PAC.

2nd step: transfer $2 mil to your 1st Leadership PAC

And $250k to your other leadership PAC

3rd: sprinkle $150k to randos Image
Now that the money is freed from those pesky campaign committee rules, things get a lot less… restrictive.
But that doesn’t mean there won’t be expenses… that airplane isn’t gonna store itself!

There’s the $21,000 in airfare mileage reimbursements on top of the $60,000 in regular airfare…

The $16,000 in “travel expenses”

Plus hotels, meals, and OFC CONSULTANTS!!
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Okay but still… where did the REST of the money go? Well my friend, allow me to introduce you to the next layer of campaign finance slime…

the 501(c)3 and 501(c)4

aka: nonprofits

aka: THE BLACK HOLE
Mr. Kinzinger did one more thing before leaving office, he opened a 501(c)3, under the name Country First Foundation, using the same mailing address as his leadership PACs, and he was granted tax-exempt status from the IRS on 3/13/23 (effective 6/9/22) Image
In 2023 Kinzinger transferred $415,000 into Country First Foundation

and another $348,546 to an entity called “Country First Action” that uses the same mailing addresses as his Leadership PACs and 501(c)3

but Country First Action isn’t registered separately w the IRS, so… Image
GuideStar has a profile for Country First Foundation which is how we know that Mr. Kinzinger chose Austin Weatherford to run it.

Who is Austin Weatherford you ask? Image
Well, Mr. Weatherford is Kinzingers former chief of staff, but more importantly, according to his own website

“…Weatherford played a key role in producing, editing, scripting and advising on the televised hearings of the US House Select Committee on the January 6 attack” Image
Isn’t that convenient? Help the Biden administration pull off a televised smear of the MAGA crowd and in exchange you get to head up a BS nonprofit, seeded with close to half a million from your old boss!

Good work if you’re not partial to your soul.
Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow!

If you enjoy my 🧵s please be sure to share them! And if you want to support independent journalism, I drink lots of coffee 😉 buymeacoffee.com/Villgecrazylady

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More from @Villgecrazylady

Aug 30
It can be hard to know where to start when you set out to debunk a mountain of hogwash like the one found in Michael Tracey’s latest article on Darryl Cooper.

I don’t blame Cooper for refusing to engage Tracey in his questions. It’s an exhausting task to pick through bad faith “hit pieces” like that and if I had just lost a family member, I sure as heck wouldn’t do it.

But since I wasn’t particularly busy this week, and since I was especially enraged at the smarmy, deceitful way Tracey tried to both smear Cooper and rewrite the history on the Epstein case, I said “meh, somebody’s gotta respond, might as well be me.”

So without further ado, let’s go. This is long, my apologies upfront

🧵

(note: I do not know Darryl Cooper and I have never communicated with him in any way. I took this task on, of my own volition, and nothing I post should be viewed as me attempting to answer for Darryl Cooper.)Image
In Michael Tracey’s latest edition of “Shoot the Messenger” he set his sites on podcaster Darryl Cooper.

Specifically Tracey honed in on Cooper’s 3 hour July 18 interview w Tucker Carlson in which Copper laid out in meticulous detail the Epstein case & subsequent govt coverup
Tracey’s article opens quickly at the 2:35 mark where he quotes Cooper as saying: Image
Read 27 tweets
Aug 18
The false, defamatory and libelous accusations against Tony Aguilar 🧵

When I first started to report on the Tony Aguilar case, I struggled with the ethics of posting a married couple’s most trying and difficult times for all the world to see and comment on. After consulting with numerous people, my friend Matthew said “Mel, it’s genocide. There’s nothing that matters more than that.” And I simply couldn’t argue.

Still, I did my best to respect their privacy and only post what I thought was absolutely necessary to refute the false claims of spousal abuse against Tony.

But since we’re dealing with Zionists, of course the bare minimum was never going to be enough. As we all know, Zionists will do ANYTHING to defend their precious genocidal apartheid state: lie, cheat, steal… doesn’t matter. They have no limits.

So of course the 3 pages signed affidavit from Tony’s wife stating unequivocally that he DID NOT ABUSE HER wasn’t enough. And in the weeks since I’ve been tagged in every single stupid kind of thread you could possibly imagine.

But yesterday I was tagged in a new thread, this one including 2 pages from the 139 page Aguilar child custody file.

And to my utter shock and horror, these Zionist scumbags had gone SOOOO much further than I ever expected.

They took 2 completely different court documents, one a separation agreement and the other a completely separate court order from 8 months later and welded them together as if they were one.

They then presented these two completely different documents as *proof* that Tony Aguilar was charged with spousal abuse and he leveraged charges against his wife to clear them.

THIS. IS. A. LIE.

Let me repeat:

THIS. IS. A. BOLD. FACED. FUCKING. LIE.

So here is my very last post on this topic, complete with all court docs and links.

TBC: I am only doing this because To y Aguilar’s testimony matters. Attacks on his character matter. I did everything I could to avoid this and I take no joy in talking about these things. Marriage is hard, people make mistakes. I pray that Tony’s (ex?)wife got the help she needed and I hate that the details of this dark time in their lives have become fodder for the social media masses.
From the beginning:

• Dec 1, 2021 Allison Aguilar falls down while drinking and breaks her nose.

• Dec 2, 2021 Aguilar goes to the Womack Medical Center on Ft. Bragg for her broken nose and the Harnett Co Sheriff is called.

The sheriff’s office opens an incident report.
• Jan 27, 2022 Tony Aguilar files for separation.

• Jan 28, 2022 the Aguilar’s sign a separation agreement which includes a caveat about Ms. Aguilar “asking the Harnett County prosecutor to drop charges against Tony”

Let’s stop right there:

THIS. IS. NOT. A. THING. Image
Read 19 tweets
Aug 1
Just took a trip down to my county courthouse to check out this supposed “arrest record” for myself.

I knew something wasn’t right for a multitude of reasons:

1. The zip code on that address is a Ft Bragg zip code not a Sanford one.

2. Duke Lane doesn’t exist.

3. Arrest notices use the full docket number. The one in that picture is missing the last 3 numbers.

And just as I suspected, every last one of these pieces of shit is lying through their teeth.

And yes, I can prove it. 🧵Image
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First off I searched for the case number. And I found it. On a felony firearm possession case in Alamance County. Image
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Then I start chatting with the super sweet clerk and show her what I’m looking for and she immediately “Nah, that looks fake. They don’t put DOB out there like that. They only put age.”

So I pull up the Harnett County sheriff’s dept website and sure as sit, no DOB, just age. Image
Read 14 tweets
Aug 1
I went through and screenshot all the messages GHF is using to smear Anthony Aguilar.

🧵

1. GHF started operating in Gaza on May 28, 2025. All the messages of praise for GHF are from the first couple days.

That red box quote is literally from Day 1. Image
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Pretty sure Aguilar was some kind of team leader and all of these messages seem worded to keep morale boosted. Image
According to GHF Aguilar was fired on June 13th. His messages on the 14th show there were clearly problems on the ground that he took issue with but he thought he could help.

Interesting that GHF chose not to show the whole message on this pic. Before the message cuts off Aguilar says “….the issues we have require leadership to fix. That’s what’s missing. This isn’t an operator job.”Image
Read 8 tweets
Jun 30
Just found out that the head of in-house litigation for the McDonald v. FEC case, Alan Gura, is literally an Israeli born dual-citizen.

Because OFC he is!!!

For those who don’t know, this case has NOTHING to do with privacy and EVERYTHING to do with stopping us from being able to monitor smurfing donations to political campaigns.

If you don’t know what smurfing is, it’s a money laundering scheme where unknown persons make hundreds, sometimes thousands, of small-dollar donations (less than $200) to political campaigns in the names of real Americans without their knowledge.

The people most often busted for running these scams are foreign nationals who are barred from donating directly to political campaigns or rich Americans who either can’t donate more money because they have reached their legal limit or who want to donate to a certain candidate without other people knowing.

The scam itself isn’t particularly new or innovative. Rich people have been giving money to their secretaries and gardeners to make political contributions for them for decades.

But the way it’s being done now, using AI powered bot programs to run millions of tiny transactions under the radar, through ActBlue and WinRed, that’s only been going on at an industrial scale, since 2017 for ActBlue and 2019 for WinRed.

I’ve written about a dozen threads on it, I’ll link them in the comments.

But it’s fascinating to me to know now that it’s literally an Israeli citizen who heads the team of litigators trying to shutdown the public’s ability to track this stuff. They don’t want WinRed and ActBlue to have to disclose the names of any donors who donate less than $200 to a political campaign. If they can block that, they’ll be able to shutdown all public inquiry into the scam.

And now you know why Republicans have been dragging their feet on their ActBlue “investigations.”Image
This thread tracks the donor numbers and amounts across several cycles
Read 5 tweets
May 7
⚡️Campaign Finance: Mike Waltz 🧵

After Saturday’s story from the WP that claimed Mike Waltz was fired from his role as National Security Advisor for engaging in “intense coordination” with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu behind Trump’s back, I decided to take a glance at Waltz’s campaign finance filings to see if they could shed any light on who pulls his strings.

I don’t know what I was expecting to find but I definitely wasn’t expecting what I found.

Specifically, I was surprised to learn that days before resigning from the House, Mike Waltz used his principal campaign fund to pay exorbitant “consulting” fees to companies owned by two of his congressional staffers, Micah Ketchel and James Hewitt, and one member of the Trump transition team, Brian Hughes, all of whom were then hired to work directly for him at the National Security Council.

And then days after resigning from the House, Waltz continued to use his Mike Waltz for Congress account to pay for over $45,000 worth of travel, office, catering and event expenses in and around DC during the inauguration. Despite the fact that he’s not running any kind of campaign.

(Article version at bottom of thread)
Mike Waltz closed out the 2024 election cycle with a little more than $1.5 million in the bank in his principal campaign fund. Image
Leftover funds are typically just rolled into the next cycle but since Waltz was going to be leaving Congress to become the NSA I was expecting to see his principal campaign converted or dissolved… similar to what I’ve seen from others.
Read 24 tweets

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