EXCLUSIVE: FEC Reports Show Ted Lieu Apparently Used Campaign Donations For Personal Gain

He’s still at it. 

Since 2019, RedState has broken numerous stories about Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu’s potentially illegal habit of spending campaign funds on expenses that personally benefit him and his family, such as $10,000 to the Torrance Education Foundation, which sponsors his sons’ robotics team, $15,000 to his wife’s school board campaign, and a $50,000 contribution to the university at which his eldest son matriculated a couple of years later (Stanford).

READ MORE: Ted Lieu Used $15K of His Campaign Contributions to Get His Wife Elected to the School Board

Those stories garnered national attention, but he doesn’t care. He kept right on sending money from his donors to these causes, without his donors’ knowledge or consent. A review of FEC records shows that Ted Lieu for Congress has now donated $25,000 to Betty Lieu’s school board campaign and $17,000 to the Torrance Education Foundation.

In addition, Ted had his political allies funnel contributions to Betty Lieu from their campaign accounts. The amounts of these contributions aren’t insignificant. In 2023, every dime received by Betty Lieu for School Board was from either Ted Lieu for Congress or Asian American Forward PAC, a PAC founded and controlled by one of Ted’s donors.

Out of the $140,329 in monetary contributions Betty Lieu for School Board received between 2018 and 2023, 33 percent is from the campaign accounts of Ted Lieu and a handful of California politicians:

• $5,000 Asian American Forward PAC
• $13,000 Former CA State Treasurer John Chiang
• $2,500 CA Asm. Evan Low (who’s now running for Congress)
• $3,400 Former CA Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon
• $500 CA Asm. Ben Allen
• $22,913 Ted Lieu for Congress

Betty Lieu for School Board doesn’t have to file contribution reports for 2024 until after June 30; from FEC records we know that Ted Lieu for Congress contributed another $2,000 to his wife’s campaign in January 2024, bringing his campaign’s total transfers to $24,913.

Betty Lieu for School Board Contributions From Ted 2022 Through 2024 by Jennifer Van Laar on Scribd

Another 27 percent of Betty Lieu for School Board’s contributions come from just five of Ted Lieu for Congress’ donors or their corporations:

• $12,500 Royal Business Bank and its employees
• $10,000 Belkin CEO Chester Pipkin and his wife (Nevada residents)
• $8,000 Jackson Yang of Seville Classics
• $7,500 Peggy Huang of Trendnet

For perspective, other candidates running for a seat on the Torrance Unified School District board in 2018 raised about $1,500 as of a few weeks before election day, according to a local newspaper. Why would it take Betty Lieu $60,000 to win the seat?

The Betty Lieu for School Board campaign has now repaid the $60,000 loan from the Lieus, thanks to the generosity of these donors and others the Congressman solicited back in 2020, and his own donors who unwittingly helped pay it off via their contributions to Ted’s congressional campaign.

What a caring husband, asking donors to help retire Betty’s school board campaign debt. He left out the part about that being debt owed to him personally.

While federal election law allows federal candidates to use their email list or other campaign resources to solicit contributions for other candidates and transfer campaign funds to other candidates, they are prohibited from converting campaign funds to personal use or using campaign funds to make a gift or donation to a family member under both federal election law and House ethics rules. From the section of the House Ethics website regarding charitable donations and transfer of campaign funds to another candidate (emphasis mine):

The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) generally allows Members to donate campaign funds to any entity of the kinds described in § 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code – including a charitable or educational organization, or a governmental entity –  provided that there is no conversion to personal use through the donation….

[I]f otherwise lawful, campaign funds may be transferred to another candidate, or invested for use in a future political campaign, provided, again, that there is no conversion of funds to personal use.

From the Federal Election Commission:

Gifts to charity are not considered personal use expenses as long as neither the candidate nor any member of the candidate’s family receives compensation from the charitable organization before it has expended the entire amount donated. Note that the amount donated must have been used for purposes that do not personally benefit the candidate.

And regarding the use of campaign funds for gifts:

Use of campaign funds for a gift or donation is permissible only if the outlay serves a bona fide campaign or political purpose, and in this regard, the regulation specifies that a Member may not use campaign funds to make a gift or donation to a family member.

For those who still haven’t connected the dots, here is how all of these contributions benefit Ted Lieu personally or should be considered personal expenses, both of which are illegal under federal campaign finance law and unethical under House of Representatives ethics rules. 

Money given to the Torrance Education Foundation from Ted Lieu’s congressional campaign account benefits Ted, because when Torbots, the robotics team Ted’s sons participate in that’s sponsored by TEF, has the funding to travel to competitions and purchase equipment (equipment teams in urban neighborhoods can’t afford, BTW), the students participating don’t have to come up with the cash for these things. And, the technical education received by Ted Lieu’s sons is a massive personal benefit; the education and experience can lead to scholarships, good job opportunities, and land them high-paying jobs (see bonus content after this article).

Money given to Betty Lieu for Congress from Ted Lieu’s congressional campaign, from politicians who wanted Ted’s endorsement, and via solicitation of Ted’s donors, benefits Ted Lieu personally because that money directly went to repaying the $60,000 Ted and Betty put into the school board campaign. According to the email sent to Ted’s donors, the donors weren’t informed that these contributions would go to pay Ted personally.

Since we know that the Biden DOJ won’t go after Ted Lieu for these campaign finance violations, it’s going to be left to the House of Representatives to do something about this blatant conversion of campaign funds to personal use.

Read all of RedState’s coverage on Ted Lieu’s problematic uses for donor dollars:

“Ted Lieu’s Creative Uses for Donor Dollars: A RedState Investigative Series“

BONUS CONTENT: Here’s one way his sons’ participation in Torbots is benefitting Ted Lieu. The Lieus’ oldest son, Brennan, worked as a Design and Production Applications Specialist for AWA Forged Composites while he was still in high school, and then as the company’s Vice President of Product Development immediately after his high school graduation, according to Brennan’s LinkedIn*. Brennan attributes his abilities to his experiences at TorBots:

“My experiences at TorBots learning to design and machine products have proved very beneficial for attaining my current job and performing well. I work at a startup called AWA Composites that is making combustion engine parts more efficient and more powerful by replacing them with carbon fiber. Without the knowledge of having machined parts previously on a CNC or knowing how to design proficiently, I would never have been able to design industry-standard products like I currently do.” – Brennan L.

Brennan is currently a sophomore engineering student at Stanford, and as of 2022 lists himself as co-founder of BladeX Technologies, LLC.

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