Senator Kyrsten Sinema appears to have used her campaign to pay for personal expenses, including trips to Europe and California wine country, according to a complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington with the Federal Election Commission.

The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits political campaigns from spending campaign funds for personal use if the expenses “would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.” Sinema announced she would not run for reelection on March 5, 2024, and since then her campaign spent over $100,000 for what appear to be personal travel expenses. The campaign received no contributions, other than one unitemized dollar, after disbursing these funds.

“The law applies to you whether it’s your first week in office or your last,” said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. “Spending thousands of dollars of campaign contributions on yourself is even more troubling when it comes after you’ve announced you’re no longer a candidate.”

In the incident possibly furthest from campaigning, three weeks after Sinema announced she would not run again, her campaign spent more than $3,000 in Rome and Milan, Italy. The complaint also identified suspicious spending around the Boston Marathon, which is not the first time Sinema has spent campaign funds around it.

“The rule of thumb is that any dollar your campaign spends has to be for the campaign–it can’t just be for your own personal benefit,” Bookbinder said. “It’s hard to see how any of this spending was for the benefit of the campaign.”

CREW previously brought personal use of campaign funds complaints against then-Congressman Duncan Hunter, who resigned due to the scandal and eventual criminal conviction it brought forth.

Click here to read the complaint.

Photo of Senator Kyrsten Sinema by Gage Skidmore under Creative Commons license

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