Not surprised at all by this:
The Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor used campaign donations to pay for a lawyer to represent him in front of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, records show.
Doug Mastriano, the far-right state senator who is a key figure in the 2020 election-denial conspiracy movement, paid “Parlatore” $10,000 for “legal consulting” on March 3, according to recent campaign finance filings reviewed by HuffPost. The listed address for Parlatore matches that of a law firm founded by Timothy Parlatore, who has represented Mastriano in his dealings with the Jan. 6 committee.
The committee subpoenaed Mastriano in February, seeking documents related to his attempt to send fake electors to Washington in order to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Mastriano’s use of campaign funds to pay Parlatore likely doesn’t violate state or federal campaign finance laws, but it still raises ethical questions. Mastriano previously used funds from his state Senate campaign to charter buses to Washington for his supporters to attend the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that turned into the insurrection.
“Any public official using campaign funds to support a coup is doing something unethical, even if it doesn’t necessarily violate the letter of law,” Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director at Documented, a watchdog group monitoring money in politics, told HuffPost.
Parlatore told HuffPost in an email that the payment was both legal and ethical.
He’s going to need it if he has to go before the January 6th Committee in July. Here’s what the Committee currently has on him:
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, has submitted documents to the congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and has agreed to be interviewed, his lawyer said Thursday.
Mastriano submitted the documents on Tuesday, Politico first reported, including receipts for $3,354 for buses he rented to bring supporters to the rally in Washington that devolved into the Capitol insurrection. Mastriano, a leader of the election denial movement in Pennsylvania, also submitted a manifest of passengers, showing he sold more than 130 tickets for the buses.
Mastriano also submitted a tranche of documents he had tweeted after the 2020 presidential election, calling on his colleagues in the state legislature to stop the certification of the results based on false and debunked fraud claims.
Timothy Parlatore, Mastriano’s lawyer, told The Inquirer Mastriano would cooperate with the committee but struck a combative tone about its powers and motivations to investigate the attack on the Capitol.
Parlatore also said Mastriano was interviewed by FBI agents last year about Jan. 6.
“He cooperated fully and no further action was required, as he clearly was not involved in any criminal activity,” Parlatore said.
Also:
Doug Mastriano was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator, has been subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee. He organized buses to D.C. that day, according to receipts his campaign's lawyer previously acknowledged turning over to the Jan. 6 committee. Video shows he was just feet away as rioters ripped down police barricades, but he has said he followed police lines “as they existed” and says he left the Capitol when it was “apparent that this was no longer a peaceful protest.”
His primary election victory last month has prompted a renewed look at his role on Jan. 6, including previously unpublished photos that show him in the back of a crowd that breached a police barricade.
And all of this could play a big role in November’s elections:
Both U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano have been big backers of Trump and supported his claims that the election was stolen, Mastriano attended the insurrection rally but maintained that he left before things got violent.
It remains to be seen how the revelations will all play out on the campaign trail and if they will have any impact on the races. It seems unlikely that Republicans will come around to realizing they were duped by Trump, but independent voters might be another story. It’s also possible that the dramatic revelations will spur Democratic voters to turn out in greater numbers than anticipated.
The revelations add more drama and intrigue to the races, which already have seen more twists and turns than a Netflix political thriller.
As I brought up earlier today, Shapiro is wasting no time defining Mastriano to the electorate:
A new TV ad from Democrat Josh Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign labels his GOP opponent, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, as “extreme and way too risky for Pennsylvania.”
The minute-long spot from Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, highlight’s Mastriano’s far-right positions, including his support for abortion bans without exceptions; rolling back the legalization of gay marriage; his comments that climate change is “fake science;” and his assertion that, as governor, he could decertify voting machines.
The ad also highlights Mastriano’s presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, showing footage of the attack and an image of Mastriano passing through breached barricades (Mastriano has said he left before the riot).
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