Salary payments Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) disbursed from her campaign committee to herself are now under review for potential violations.
The House Ethics Committee is looking into payments from the Tlaib campaign which occurred during and after the midterm election cycle, according to Politico. First-time candidates are permitted to pay themselves a salary from campaign funds up to Election Day, but Tlaib received $17,550 from her campaign's coffers following the election, a potential violation first reported by the Washington Free Beacon in March.
Tlaib's campaign has denied any wrongdoing and said it is cooperating with the ethics panel. "Representative Tlaib has cooperated completely with the Committee to resolve the referral, which involves the same claims over her publicly disclosed salary during the campaign that conservative groups pressed back in March," Tlaib spokesperson Denzel McCampbell told Politico.
Tlaib began paying herself from her campaign on May 7, 2018, around the time she took a leave of absence from her job at the Sugar Law Center, a Detroit-based social justice organization. Tlaib's salary payments averaged $4,000 per month outside of August, when two checks for $3,000 each were made out to Tlaib. She paid herself $28,000 from her campaign funds from early May to the general election.
Following the election, Tlaib cut herself a $2,000 check in mid-November and disbursed $15,500 to her name in early December, an amount far higher than the average salary payments during the campaign. A Federal Election Commission spokesperson told the Free Beacon in March that candidates may only pay themselves after the general election for activity that occurred before the election.
In total, Tlaib paid herself $45,500 from her campaign committee from May until early December. The committee will announce its next course of action by Nov. 14.