DGA Files FEC Complaint Against Lou Barletta for His Self-Dealing ‘Ethically Questionable’ PAC Spending

The DGA filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against GOP gubernatorial candidate and former congressman Lou Barletta after he got caught using a political action committee to funnel money to himself, appearing to violate federal campaign law.

In a move recent reporting from HuffPost calls “ethically questionable,”  79% of the PAC’s total spending in 2020 was blown on “operating expenditures,” while only 11% of total spending was contributed to political candidates or other PACs. That includes Barletta using his PAC to pay ​​$33,000 in rent to his wife for a property they jointly owned over a 21-month period.

The FEC complaint details that “the amount of the monthly payments varied significantly over this time—a troubling sign indicating the Representative may have been either enriching himself by overpaying or illegally undercharging his committee. Either way, it appears Representative Barletta has violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended, and Commission regulations through his self-dealing.”

“Lou Barletta is a corrupt politician who said one thing to Pennsylvanians, but then used their money to line his own pockets with tens of thousands of dollars. That type of shady self-dealing shows he can’t be trusted to be anywhere near the governorship, just like when he ran his town’s finances into the ground as mayor,” said DGA Deputy Communications Director Sam Newton. “Barletta should stop dodging questions and come clean on his self-enrichment scandal.”