Corrupt Cognetti EXPOSED as Shameless Liar
Political opportunist Paige Cognetti has just been exposed as a shameless liar by a new bombshell report. Cognetti has been lying to Pennsylvanians for months by claiming she doesn’t take corporate PAC money.
The truth? Cognetti’s lying through her teeth to Pennsylvania voters.
“Political opportunist Paige Cognetti is a carpetbagging, poll-constructed fraud who’s lied to Pennsylvanians for months. This November, voters will hold Cognetti responsible for her lies and deception.” – NRCC Spokesman Reilly Richardson
Read more from NOTUS here or see excerpts below:
Paige Cognetti Refuses Corporate PAC Money. But Some Is Arriving Indirectly.
Avani Kalra
NOTUS
July 30, 2026
Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who Democrats hope will unseat Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan this November, has repeatedly pledged not to take money from corporate political action committees as a candidate or lawmaker.
“No Corporate PAC Money. As a candidate and member of Congress I will reject the influence of special interests,” Cognetti wrote on her campaign website.
But federal campaign finance filings show Cognetti has accepted donations from numerous political committees that themselves are awash in cash from corporate PACs, including money from defense contractor Boeing, banking giant JPMorgan Chase and insurance company UnitedHealthcare.
Many of the non-corporate political committees supporting Cognetti are leadership PACs operated by Democratic federal lawmakers to boost their party’s congressional candidates.
During her 2026 campaign to represent Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, Cognetti has, for example, taken $5,000 from Blue Hen Federal PAC, a committee sponsored by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware).
Coons’ committee has received hundreds of thousands of dollars this election cycle from a who’s who of corporate and trade association PACs tied to companies such as Visa, FedEx, Pfizer, Northrop Grumman, Eli Lilly,Google, McKinsey and Fox News parent Fox Corp., among several dozen others.
Cognetti’s campaign has also received $4,000 from the campaign committee of House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, which itself is partly bankrolled by numerous corporate PACs, including those sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Verizon, Allstate Insurance and law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird.
Cognetti took money from dozens of these leadership PACs that report significant corporate contributions — including the PACs of Rep. Ted Lieu, the House Democratic Caucus vice chair, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker.
[…]
“Only a slick politician like Paige Cognetti would make a promise to reject corporate PAC money a centerpiece of her campaign only to find a loophole to accept it,” Samantha Bullock, a spokesperson for Bresnahan’s campaign, said in a statement to NOTUS.
[…]
Other candidates have been criticized in the past for accepting similar contributions. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, now the governor of Virginia, campaigned on rejecting corporate PAC money while running for Congress in 2022 — and was slammed at the time for taking money from leadership PACs.