A Texas businessman has said there is nothing untoward about a $250,000 donation he made to Trump’s scandal-hit Senate candidate Ken Paxton, despite using a false name.
Last year, a super PAC supporting Paxton’s Texas Senate bid received a whopping $250,000 donation from a so-called “Paul McLaren” from Plano.
However, Politico reports that no one goes by the name “Paul McLaren” in Plano, and the address listed on the campaign finance record was a rented mailbox in a strip mall.
It turns out the six-figure donation actually came from a man named Ben Pogue, the son of a Texas construction company founder who was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2020 after pleading guilty to filing a false tax return.
Pogue told Politico that the fake name was not “an effort to conceal the source of the donation” to Paxton’s campaign, but an “inside joke” between him and the Texas attorney general.
Pogue explained that he concocted the name because his middle name is Paul and he owned a McLaren sports car several years ago. He did not explain why he listed a rented mailbox in a strip mall as his address on the campaign finance record.
A spokesperson for the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC said the campaign filing should have stated that the donation came from the “Paul McLaren Revocable Trust” and will be corrected.
Pogue and his wife have used the alias “McLaren” to donate to multiple other Republican figures over the years, FEC records show.
This includes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Herschel Walker, the staunchly anti-abortion 2022 Georgia Senate hopeful whose campaign was plagued by revelations from the Daily Beast that he paid for his girlfriend to terminate her pregnancy in 2009.
Republican groups are pumping vast sums of money into trying to elect the constantly embattled Paxton in what is normally a safe Republican Senate seat.
Multiple polls have shown Democratic candidate James Talarico leading Paxton in the crucial Texas Senate race, as Talarico aims to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas since 1988. A Talarico victory over Paxton would also significantly improve the Democrats’ chances of flipping the upper chamber in the midterms.
In February 2020, Trump announced full pardons for 11 people, including former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Paul Pogue, the father of the man behind the $250,000 donation to Paxton.
Paul Pogue pleaded guilty in 2010 to filing a false tax return after he underreported his income by nearly $1.7 million over several years. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and more than $473,000 in restitution.
The White House said in a statement at the time that Paxton was among those who supported Trump in granting the clemency. Paul Pogue had given Paxton $10,000 to help the Texas attorney general fight his case after he was indicted in 2015 on felony counts of securities fraud.
Nine years later, Paxton avoided trial by reaching a plea deal that required him to complete 100 hours of community service and pay about $271,000 in restitution.
The Daily Beast has contacted Ken Paxton’s team and Ben Pogue for comment.
