Sacrebleu! Sinema Gets FEC Complaint Over Shameless ‘Exquisite’ Expenses

She likes nice things, what’s one to say? Outgoing former Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona surely enjoyed her time in the Senate – blessedly cut short when deciding to not even try to run this year, because Sinema had already faced complaints lodged last year over her exorbitant and selfish spending of “other people’s money” through her campaign PAC. This year, when known to be formally “out” of the race, it appears that Sinema tried to outdo herself in stimulating the global economy’s luxury-lifestyle sector. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) blasted yet another FEC complaint and this one might stick, given – well, the rules and all. It is hard to justify spending campaign cash when officially “out” of the campaign – and it’s really hard when your spending really sticks out with words like “Pantheon” and “Three Sticks” attached to reports.

Look, it’s almost comical, even – elegant. There really is something to be said for one who has basically tossed the rules and then just goes all the way, hall of fame, with it. You really sort of have to applaud the effort. If only she cared about American workers as much as Italy’s waiters, they’d be in better shape.

But, first – the specifics, because this is pure gold… Actually, gold might’ve been cheaper and could’ve been seen as at least an investment in something. The woman has taste. According to The Intercept, CREW noted the following reports.

$3,120 to vendors in Italy in March, including a hotel in Milan and a restaurant steps from the Pantheon in Rome

Che bello! I mean, come on. “Milan”… It sounds close enough to Miami, right? Except, well – so foreign as to be even hotter.

Nearly $9,000 to vendors in Massachusetts around the time of the Boston Marathon in April, which Sinema, a fitness buff, has participated in before

Wicked, baby!

$82,000 in a grab bag of travel expenses this year that include $3,600 in the United Kingdom and $5,400 in France, including $2,800 at the Castel de Très Girard in the wine region of Burgundy

As a recovering attorney, and as a writer, I simply cannot say this enough – if you are going to shamelessly shred campaign finance laws, do it with elan, submit receipts with references to “Castels” and “Bergundy” in and around the numbers. In fact, do it with elan in Milan and you get a free upgrade on your sanction!

All of this would have been bad enough had Sinema actually been in on or around a campaign. The rules are simple enough, you can’t spend campaign cash on personal expenses, they have to be associated with campaign fundraising or political activity associated with the campaign. Cleanly enough, CREW found absolutely nothing associated with Congressional duties or campaign fundraising with these trips. Easier to do when one has no campaign and all.

But here is where Sinema’s glitter-grab might pay off because she has the perfect defense in that she had to be acting as a politician because she would not otherwise have a five million dollar PAC slush fund with which to finance these trips! (Kyrsten? That would otherwise be $25,000 – take the defense, go all. the. way.) Only a shameless corporate-fat PAC Senator would drop $2,800 at Castel de Très Girard. It is not like Sinema has a personal $5 million dollar slush fund. How was she not engaging in Congressional duties? Yes, I do see holes in that defense – that’s the price you pay when you lay out pique prices.

In all seriousness, there are a few innocent victims, the hapless Arizonan “mods” who chipped in $25 here or there to keep Simema reliably grinding the Senate to a halt. But much of that money came “from donors who work at the investment firms Montgomery Capital, First Atlantic LLC, Crescent Capital Group, and TPG Capital.” Moreover, why have a “castel” without a “big pharm” around! If hedge fund managers and Pfizer et. al. have no problem with Sinema’s je ne sais quoi – one can make an argument that we don’t give a duck, either.

Except there are victims and that money will be seen as a great investment by her corporate donors because in one of her last acts in the Senate, Sinema sold out American workers:

In her first Senate vote since before Thanksgiving, Sinema helped tank a Democratic appointee to the National Labor Relations Board who could have kept its pro-union members in the majority through 2026.

And that, friends, is why Sinema can jaunt over the Atlantic with nary a care about her donors – they’re fine, thanks. That one vote may well have been worth far more to her corporate donors than her entire $5 million PAC. When they said “Citizens United” they didn’t say which citizens!

Now – will this new FEC complaint do anything? That’s a great question and one that a person likely cannot answer until the actual decision comes down. Generally, people don’t do such things unless they’re “pretty sure” they’ll get away with it. And Sinema has done this before. This time, she can say she had to be doing actual congressional duties because she didn’t even have a campaign, what else would she be doing? Or something. Really, she has no defense. It’s all in whether the FEC has any teeth left.

There is also the fear that any fine or sanction can be paid by the actual PAC itself – or whether they will determine that, since these expenses were so “personal,” she will be legally required to “personally” pay back the money. The FEC takes these travel jaunts on a “case by case” basis. Making matters even more compellingly-corrupt, Sinema is under no obligation to give her PAC money back after leaving office – she merely has to find creative political ways to spend it, perhaps on legal fees and sanctions associated with politics?

Anyway, on behalf of American workers – “sacrebleu,”  Kyrsten. But as political hacks, one just has to give her the trophy. I mean, come on. She so totally sells out that she’s in Milan, France, Napa – who needs Tuscon! Bring on Tuscany. This woman knows how to French roll. If one really is a political savant and just happened to have lost his or her soul somewhere in the 90s, this is who you want to staff!

Come to think of it. A really smart aide, perhaps one with a law degree, might say, “Hey, Senator? It’s a lot easier to claim it was a true ‘campaign’ expense if you have some ‘campaign staff’ with you.” She is as likely to take you as not. After all, she doesn’t show much care about additional expenses.

Anyway, tres bien, Kyrsten, tres bien. Oh, and arrivederci, too. You will be missed… “over there.”

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on “X” @JasonMiciak and now on Bluesky

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