Ethics Committee dismisses allegations that Democrat senator used taxpayer funds for personal trips
Fox News
The Senate Ethics Committee dismissed allegations Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., misused taxpayer dollars, but a watchdog group says there are lingering questions about the spending.
“Based on all available information, the Committee found no evidence that your actions violated federal law, Senate Rules, or standards of conduct,” chief counsel for the ethics committee, Shannon Koplin, wrote to Baldwin on Friday. “Accordingly, the Committee has dismissed the complaint. As always, the Committee retains the authority to revisit this matter should additional facts become known to the Committee.”
Baldwin faced accusations from the watchdog group, Americans for Public Trust, in a complaint filed Sept. 6 for allegedly “expending taxpayer dollars for exclusively personal travel to New York.”
It’s unclear what information the ethics committee used to dismiss the complaint. The committee has not issued any disciplinary sanctions upon a member in more than 15 years. Fox News Digital has reached out to the committee for comment.
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Koplin also sent a letter to Americans for Public Trust and said the committee “carefully evaluated the allegations in the complaint” and determined “Baldwin’s actions did not violate federal law, Senate Rules, and other standards of conduct.”
“If Senator Baldwin did nothing wrong, then why is she declining to make public the information she provided to the Ethics Committee?” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director for Americans for Public Trust, told Fox News Digital in a statement Wednesday.
She added: “After getting caught misusing taxpayer dollars, the American people deserve transparency from the committee and the senator about the basis for refusing to investigate it further.”
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According to the complaint filed on Sept. 6, Baldwin allegedly reimbursed the federal government $630 for a trip she took from Madison to New York City on Nov. 5-9, 2020, to visit her partner, private wealth adviser Maria Brisbane. But the reimbursement came “only after facing media inquiries” in August from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Baldwin staffers told the outlet at the time the trip was mistakenly “mislabeled” as official travel.
“Federal law and the Select Committee on Ethics make it clear that the expenditure of public funds must occur only for appropriated purposes,” the complaint states. “Here, public reporting indicates that Senator Baldwin has run afoul of these prohibitions by expending taxpayer dollars for exclusively personal travel to New York – a geographic location well outside of Wisconsin, and far from the constituency that she represents.”
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The complaint, signed by Sutherland, argues Baldwin’s repayment for one trip does not explain several other trips the senator took since 2018 to the Big Apple using taxpayer dollars. Baldwin reportedly racked up $3,631 for nine flights between Wisconsin or Washington, D.C., and New York City since that time.
“It remains unknown if these trips were also made for personal reasons, and as such, also require investigation,” according to the complaint.