FEC Fines Jeff Sessions’ Campaign $15,000 For Failing To Disclose Last-Minute Loan

The Federal Election Commission fined the Senate campaign of Jeff Sessions $15,000 for failing to properly disclose a last-minute, $150,000 loan from the candidate.

Campaigns are required to notify the FEC within 48 hours about any contributions or loans they receive greater than $1,000 in the 20-day period before election day. 

On June 30, 2020, two weeks before a Republican primary runoff against Tommy Tuberville, Sessions lent his campaign $150,000. But the campaign did not disclose the loan until July, after Sessions had lost the runoff to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a former football coach who then went on to defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the general election. 

“[Sessions] gained the strategic advantage of duping his opponent into thinking his campaign had less money to spend than it actually did in the final days of the campaign,” said Brett Kappel, an attorney specializing in campaign finance at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg. “This is exactly the type of gamesmanship that the 48-hour reporting requirement was supposed to prevent.” 

On Dec. 28, Sessions, who served as Trump’s attorney general but eventually lost the president’s favor, forgave the $124,000 balance of the loan.

The campaign, which was notified about the fine in February, paid the $15,000 penalty in May. As of March 31 though, it had no cash on hand, so it’s not yet clear where the $15,000 came from. The campaign’s treasurer, Anita Barrera, declined to comment. 

“Candidates failing to disclose personal loans to their campaign committees in the final days before an election has been a recurring problem,” Kappel said, adding that the problem could get worse thanks to a new court ruling that allows campaigns to repay bigger loans from candidates.