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Tom Steyer Aide Offered Campaign Contributions to Local Pols in Exchange for Endorsements: AP

Payments for endorsements could violate campaign-finance laws if a campaign does not disclose them.

A top aide to Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer has allegedly offered campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his election, the Associated Press reported on Thursday. While the offers from Pat Murphy, a former state House speaker and currently top adviser for Steyer’s Iowa campaign, is not illegal, payments for endorsements could violate campaign-finance laws if they’re not disclosed on campaign-finance reports. Currently, the AP reported there is no evidence that any Iowan politician actually accepted the offer, or received campaign contributions from Steyer’s campaign. Murphy didn’t respond to the AP’s request for comment. Steyer’s campaign press secretary told the publication Murphy has not been authorized to make any offers and that the campaign leadership outside of Iowa is unaware of these allegations.

“Our campaign policy is clear that we will not engage in this kind of activity, and anyone who does is not speaking for the campaign or does not know our policy,” Alberto Lammers, Steyer’s press secretary, said.