A political operative who worked for Rep. Ron Paul, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and now heads Sen. Rand Paul’s Super PAC was just indicted.
Jesse Benton, the head of 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul’s Super PAC has just been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to events that took place surrounding the 2012 presidential campaigns of Michele Bachmann and his father, Ron Paul.
Benton was Congressman Ron Paul’s campaign manager and later became Senator Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager before resigning over rumors he was being investigated. He later became Rand Paul’s Super PAC head.
Benton and two other Rep. Ron Paul aides, John Tate and Dimitrios Kesari, are charged with hiding payments to an Iowa lawmaker who withdrew his support for then-Congresswoman Bachmann and endorsed Congressman Ron Paul in 2011 for the 2012 presidential race.
Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson has since pleaded guilty to receiving the payments but has not been sentenced.
“The payments to Sorenson were allegedly made in monthly installments of approximately $8,000 each and ultimately amounted to over $70,000,†the Justice Department said in a statement Wednesday, according to MSNBC.
The DOJ says in its indictment, “the conspirators concealed their campaign’s payments to Sorenson from their candidate and also from the FEC, the FBI and the public.â€
The Huffington Post’s Ryan J. Reilly, who first reported the news, notes the three have been charged with “conspiracy, causing false records to obstruct a contemplated investigation, causing the submission of false campaign expenditure reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and engaging in a scheme to make false statements to the FEC.”
Benton is also charged with making false statements to the FBI, and Kesari with obstruction of justice.
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Image of Jesse Benton in 2011 in Iowa by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC licenseÂ