The Texas senator may have violated campaign finance law with his podcast.
Ted Cruz’s podcast may be crossing some major lines.
The Campaign Legal Center, or CLC, a nonprofit organization, filed a complaint against the Texas senator on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. The watchdog group argues that the Verdict With Ted Cruz podcast can’t send its profits to a super PAC that supports Cruz’s campaign.
Cruz’s podcast, produced with iHeartMedia, generates hundreds of thousands of dollars, and may be a lucrative loophole in campaign finance law since he’s making the money himself. But, as The Daily Beast found, it raises a number of legal and ethical issues.
For one, campaign finance records show that at least seven lobbyists registered to represent iHeartMedia’s interests have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Cruz’s campaign since the podcast launched in 2022, The Daily Beast reports. Cruz and iHeartMedia claim that he doesn’t get paid for the podcast, volunteering his time instead, so the money is reported as “digital revenue” from ads on the podcast.
It’s literally the only branch of law where ignorance if the law is a valid excuse. How can anyone seriously get in trouble when “sorry I didn’t know” means you’re not guilty. All criminal penalties are for “knowing and willful” violations of FECA.
Go ahead and try to prove that Ted knew that by volunteering his time this would lead I heart media to donate the revenue of his talks into his own superpac, and that he knew this was a violation of campaign finance laws.
So frustrating!