A top Democratic super PAC has funneled nearly half a million dollars this cycle to its own chairman through a company that has for the past three years operated without a business license.
Priorities USA Action has paid nearly a million dollars, including $450,000 this election cycle, to Miles Strategies, a company owned by its chairman Guy Cecil, according to Federal Election Commission records. Cecil, who served as the political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, receives a $263,000 salary from Priorities USA Action’s nonprofit arm.
Records with Washington, D.C.'s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs show that the city revoked Miles Strategies LLC’s business license. According to a spokesman for the department, Cecil regularly failed to file the necessary paperwork to keep the business operating legally. Cecil, who did not respond to a request for comment, began filing the necessary paperwork after he was contacted by the Washington Free Beacon. The department spokesman, however, told the Free Beacon Thursday the firm had not been reinstated.
Priorities USA Action has continued to pay Cecil’s firm for "strategy consulting," sending Miles Strategies $742,000 since the LLC's license was revoked in September 2017. Cecil is simultaneously collecting payments from the super PAC and a salary from the group's nonprofit arm. While the practice is not uncommon, Cecil has collected more than $1.6 million from both entities since joining the group in 2015.
In corporate filings, Miles Strategies lists Cecil as its sole owner. The firm was registered in February of 2016; it has no website and no information about it is available online.
Under Cecil's leadership, Priorities USA Action has positioned itself as the top booster of the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden. It has poured $42 million into the election thus far and has said it plans to spend north of $150 million in the 2020 cycle.
Priorities USA Action spent $190 million in 2016 on its failed attempt to elect Hillary Clinton. Prior to his role at the super PAC, Cecil served as the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.