Chrys Kefalas in Trouble with the FEC

The campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Chrys Kefalas is in trouble with the Federal Election Commission for failing to file their first quarter report in a timely manner.

In a letter to Kefalas campaign treasurer Susan Carol Bell posted on the FEC website, the Commission notes that the report is late and that civil penalties, fines, an audit, or other legal actions may occur from failure to file the report.

In a Washington Post story on the Senate race, the Kefalas campaign did not comment on their fundraising haul for the first quarter. The story noted the fundraising totals for other candidates who had filed in a timely manner, including Richard Douglas, Joe Hoer, Kathy Szeliga, and Dave Wallace.

The way that the Kefalas campaign, as reported on by the Post, is curious:

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The pre-primary finance report is not yet posted for Chrys Kefalas, a trade association executive who had $91,000 heading into 2016, and his campaign declined to release it.

What that means is that the Kefalas camp knew the report had not been properly filed with the FEC, knew that a major newspaper was reporting on fundraising days before the primary election, and still failed to file the report in a timely manner and declined to release their fundraising totals anyway. We can only speculate as to why the Kefalas camp would choose this course of action. While one can assume that Kefalas did not outraise Kathy Szeliga in the 1st quarter (she raised $260,000 during that time frame) that in and of itself is no reason to delay filing a report or reporting their haul to the media. What does Chrys Kefalas have to hide?

It’s been a rough week for the Kefalas camp with this failure to file report coming on the heels of an attempt to imply that Kefalas had the endorsement of Governor Larry Hogan and Kefalas being classified as a liberal by a national organization.