A shadowy political action committee is bilking retired Californians out of thousands of dollars through robocalls that falsely claim to raise money to re-elect President Trump, a KCBS Radio investigation reveals, and it’s even using the coronavirus pandemic to do it.
One recorded message begins with the President introducing himself and declaring “I am with you, I will fight for you and I will win for you.” Then a different male voice announces that “this is an urgent message from the campaign to elect President Trump in 2020.” It asks the recipient to press “1” to be connected to a live operator and make a donation.
But the calls are not from the Trump campaign. At the end of the message, a disclaimer delivered in a rushed voice says they’re funded by the Support American Leaders PAC. A KCBS Radio review of Federal Election Commission records reveals that’s a political action committee based in Stafford, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Campaign finance filings show that the PAC raised nearly $750,000 in 2019, but did not donate a single cent to the president’s campaign, or to any political candidate, and it spent no money on any candidate’s behalf. Instead, it used more than $200,000 of the money to place robocalls and radio ads to raise more money for itself, to cover “administrative costs” and to pay its founder, Matthew Tunstall, more than $27,000 in salary. Despite a 2019 surplus of more than half a million dollars, it closed the year showing virtually no cash on hand.
The Trump campaign says it has no connection to the committee, and disavows the organization and its robocalls. Despite repeated emails and phone calls from KCBS Radio, neither Tunstall nor the PAC’s treasurer, Maureen Otis, responded to our requests for comment.
A KCBS Radio analysis of the PAC’s fundraising shows that of the 105 donors who gave $200 or more in 2019, 87, or 83%, list their occupation as “retired.” KCBS Radio was able to track down and interview three of those donors in the Bay Area. All three were stunned to learn that the money they thought they gave to re-elect the president actually went to a PAC they’d never heard of. None remembered hearing the disclaimer or being informed their donations wouldn’t end up in the Trump campaign coffers.
“It certainly is a scam. Somebody ought to get them and put them in jail,” said 95-year-old Charles Allman of San Jose. Allman, a retired research chemist and high school teacher, is a World War II veteran who fought in Iwo Jima. “They’re lying.”
Allman insisted he made the donations to Trump, but FEC records do not list him as a Trump donor. Instead, they show that the $500 he contributed last year went to Tunstall’s PAC. “I don’t have that kind of money to throw away,” Tunstall said. “They probably should be in jail for it.” Another retired donor contributed more than $5000, and a third gave $500.
Another recent robocall from the group, again opening with a recording of the president’s voice, included a reference to the coronavirus with the claim, “President Trump needs your emergency support to pressure Congress to suspend all flights from China to the U.S.” In fact, those flights were suspended in January, yet this call continues to circulate.
The calls do not comply with federal guidelines. While they include a barely discernible disclaimer at the end, they do not mention an address, phone number or website for the sponsor, as required by law. Though the PAC’s robocalls appear to violate both FEC and Federal Communications Commission rules, Myles Martin, a spokesman for the FEC, would not confirm if the group is under federal investigation.
But Dave Levinthal with the Center for Public Integrity in Washington D.C. said even if it is, it might not matter much, since the FEC lacks a quorum to act, with only three of its six seats filled.
“The watchdog is toothless and can’t enforce the very laws that it’s been set up by Congress to enforce in the first place,” Levinthal said. He told KCBS Radio that Tunstall’s PAC is part of a burgeoning wave of so-called “scam PACS” that raise money under false pretenses for their own purposes. In fact, Tunstall has a history of shadowy PAC activity. A year ago, CNN reported his group placed hundreds of thousands of similarly deceptive calls, impersonating the Trump campaign. And Levinthal said there doesn’t seem to be much authorities can do to stop them. “Committees that are really kind of dancing on the line between what’s legal and what’s illegal, perhaps might feel emboldened because they don’t have a watchdog here in Washington, D.C. that has the ability to do anything about it.”