Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
Jack Abramoff is out there raising money for a conservative political group that aims to kill Democrats’ controversial Green New Deal proposal. At least he’s trying to; in spite of his household name status, the disgraced former lobbyist doesn’t seem to be having much luck.
Since February, Abramoff has affixed his name to at least three fundraising emails for the group Protect American Values PAC, which lists him as its “honorary chairman.” One email from late March implores supporters to “keep your foot on their necks” and “join our Patriot Insurgency Force.” That Force “ will be the most effective tool in the conservative movement’s 2020 arsenal, but I just sat down with my team and found out we’re still $35,429.28 short of our monthly goal.”
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It’s not clear what exactly that monthly goal was, but the group clearly fell quite short. The PAC raised less than $1,000 from its formation in early February through the end of March, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission this week.
Though the number is extremely small, the means by which Protect American Values is going about its fundraising asks piqued our interest. The group reported just one campaign vendor in the first quarter of the year. It paid $705 in “fundraising fees” to a Delaware-based company called LGM Consulting Group, LLC.
LGM is a bit of an odd case. It was formed in Delaware in October 2017, but its website looks like it wasn’t even finished—it’s still littered with “lorum ipsum” placeholder text. A handful of fringey Republican candidates paid the firm during the 2018 election cycle.
We called up LGM to get some more information. A man answered, and quickly refused to discuss any of his firm’s work for Abramoff’s PAC. He repeatedly refused to give his name before hanging up.
