Sen. Richard Blumenthal broadcasts a bipartisan agreement on Turkey sanctions during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 17, 2019.
Erin Scott | Reuters
Sen. Richard Blumenthal is moving ahead with recent legislative efforts to combat telemarketing scams which have raised thousands and thousands of dollars while pretending to represent political and charitable causes.
Blumenthal announced on Monday a recent oversight and legislative fight to tackle people who use telemarketing calls, online scams and other schemes to effectively steal thousands and thousands of dollars from donors. Contributors think they’re donating to real causes, but they’re tricked into giving to fake organizations, with their leaders ending up keeping the cash for themselves.
The Connecticut Democrat’s first step was to send letters to the chairs of the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Trade Commission as a part of his larger inquiry.
“I’m writing on the steps the Federal Election Commission and its partners are taking to crack down on fraudulent schemes that use political and charitable causes for personal enrichment, and solicit obligatory changes to the law to carry these scammers accountable,” Blumenthal wrote to Dara Lindenbaum, the chair of the FEC. He wrote an analogous letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan.
The move by Blumenthal on fundraising scams comes amid a growing variety of cases of so-called “scam PACs,” which raise money for made-up political efforts. Those making the solicitations then keep the contributions for themselves.
Blumenthal was featured in HBO’s recent docuseries “Telemarketers,” where he suggested Congress could concentrate on some of these schemes.
Prosecutors from the Southern District of Latest York charged two people in August with running such schemes. Two men were arrested last month for using telemarketing and other schemes to defraud donors while soliciting money for fake political motion committees.
Certainly one of the lads charged raised funds through 4 fake PACs, including a committee that had a title hinting it advocated for curing breast cancer. Those PACs alone raised greater than $28 million, in keeping with prosecutors.
The Latest York Times reported earlier this 12 months that a bunch of conservative political operatives used “scam PACs” to lift $89 million, while the groups spent little or no on actual operational activities.
