$70k on flowers?!
The New York Post reports that the “Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on office furniture, private flights, foreign travel — and $70,000 worth of flowers.”
And it sounds like DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney’s lavish spending has rankled some in his own party…
“For being a political organization, the DCCC is failing politics 101 with horrible optics that clearly come from a high-maintenance leader,” fumed one senior Democratic congressional staffer. “You can’t run all these races and drop this money on flowers and jets. Do you want to get people elected or have really nice stuff?”
In case you missed it…
DCCC drops cash on foreign travel, private planes — and $70K in flowers
New York Post
Jon Levine
October 2, 2021
https://nypost.com/2021/10/02/dccc-drops-cash-on-foreign-travel-private-planes-and-70k-in-flowers/
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on office furniture, private flights, foreign travel — and $70,000 worth of flowers, a review of Federal Election Commission documents show.
In July the committee reported more than $3,000 in combined expenditures to British Airways and Icelandair. Another $15,571 was dropped at EJCR LLC Dba Advanced Aviation Team — a private jet services company that was also a favorite of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
In August the committee dropped a whopping $592,036 on office furniture for their own headquarters, documents show. There’s also been more than $70,000 on flowers since December — a figure that puts Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s botanical spending to shame.
The DCCC is an official organ of the Democratic party tasked with getting their members elected to the House of Representatives. The Committee faces a tough fight next year to defend the party’s thin House majority.
A withering survey from Punchbowl in May found that more than three of four Capitol Hill staffers believed the House would flip to Republican control in 2022.
“For being a political organization, the DCCC is failing politics 101 with horrible optics that clearly come from a high-maintenance leader,” fumed one senior Democratic congressional staffer. “You can’t run all these races and drop this money on flowers and jets. Do you want to get people elected or have really nice stuff?”
It’s not the first time New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the DCCC chairman, raised eyebrows for questionable spending. In June his committee spent $813 for an Air France flight just weeks before Maloney jetted off to Nice with his husband for a friend’s wedding.
Reps for the committee said the Air France expenditure didn’t pay for Maloney’s trip — and later dismissed The Post’s reporting as homophobic.
“The flights were for fundraisers earlier this month, including those in London and Geneva with Americans living abroad. The DCCC never covers any costs related to personal travel, or any other personal expenses for that matter,” DCCC spokesman Chris Hayden told The Post.
Hayden added that the furniture was for new office space which the DCCC had moved into and the flowers were a normal part of “event production costs.”
Republicans said they were salivating at the disorder.
“Maloney knows deep down that House Democrats are headed for a historic loss next November as polls continue to plummet, maybe that’s why he is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations on flowers, office furniture, and European vacations. He knows the elitist days of Pelosi’s Democrat majority are numbered,” GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik told The Post.