Indicted GOP Congressman Loans His Campaign $500K
Rep. Chris Collins has seen fundraising dwindle as he fights federal insider trading charges.
John Normile/Getty
Embattled Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) loaned his own campaign half a million dollars last month as fundraising for his re-election effort nosedived amidst federal insider trading charges against him.
Collins, who is facing 10 criminal counts including securities fraud and wire fraud, raised just over $9,000 in the second quarter of the year, a paltry sum, but more than the $5,000 he brought in from January through March.
Collins’ top donors in the second quarter included the political arm of the Tuesday Group, a coalition of moderate Republican House members that reaffirmed its support for Collins earlier this year in spite of the criminal case against him. Collins also brought in $1,000 from the Humane Society, which gave him an award in April.
He also transferred $2,000 from his joint fundraising committee to his campaign account. The campaign committee now has more than $650,000 in cash on hand.
The scandal-plagued congressman has already drawn a Republican challenger in next year’s primary. A month before Collins loaned his campaign $500,000, State Senator Christopher Jacobs announced that he would seek the GOP nomination in New York’s 27th congressional district, citing Collins’ legal troubles.
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The congressman has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors allege that he used his position on the board of a biopharmaceutical company to glean inside information about the company’s drug trials, and shared that information with his son, a major shareholder in the company, who subsequently traded stocks based on that information before it became public.
Collins’ sizable campaign loan indicates that he plans to push ahead with his re-election effort in spite of those charges.
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