HELENA, Mont. – Today, the Montana Republican Party filed two official campaign complaints with the Commissioner of Political Practices against the Mike Cooney for Governor campaign.
The first complaint seeks to hold the Cooney campaign accountable forfailing to file its most recent campaign finance report electronically by the deadline. All activity between September 16th to October 14th needed to be filed by the Mike Cooney for Governor campaign by October 20th, however, as of October 21st at 9:30 a.m., that report was neither posted electronically nor available via hardcopy as required by law.
The second complaint seeks to hold the Mike Cooney for Governor campaign and Perkins Coie, LLP accountable for either an illegal corporate in-kind contribution from Perkins Coie, LLP, or failure to disclose expenditures to Perkins Coie, LLP for legal counsel provided to the campaign.
After filing the complaints on Wednesday, the Montana Republican Party released the following statement:
“As a career politician with 44 years in government, Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney has a concerning and consistent pattern of playing fast-and-loose with the rules – getting dinged twice this year already by the Commissioner of Political Practices for breaking the law,” said spokesperson Brooke Stroyke. “The COPP must hold Mike Cooney accountable for these blatant violations of Montana law.”
As a reminder – earlier this month, the Commissioner of Political Practices found that Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney violated Montana campaign finance laws by illegally coordinating with and accepting illegal donations from an out-of-state special interest group that has invested more than $10 million in support of his campaign.
Furthermore – in July, Cooney received the maximum penalty for violating the state code of ethics this summer by using taxpayer resources forcampaign purposes on a conference call with the DGA.
