Rep. Jim Jordan’s re-election campaign settles Federal Election Commission case with $60,000 payment

WASHINGTON, D. C. – U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s re-election campaign paid a $60,000 “conciliation settlement fee” to the Federal Election Commission on June 22 to conclude a probe the FEC opened after the campaign corrected some of its old reports in 2021, according to an FEC report Jordan filed Thursday.

In March 2021, the FEC sent 10 letters to Jordan’s campaign to question receipt differences between its original and updated filings that were as high as $558,726.12, and disbursement differences that were as high as $911,530.36.

Jordan’s campaign said it amended its old reports after hiring a new treasurer who found his predecessor had incorrectly attributed online campaign contributions the committee received toward the end of the time periods covered in reports that were filed in 2018 through 2021.

“After noticing a discrepancy in our campaign accounting we found the error, fixed it, and self-reported the issue to the FEC,” said a Thursday statement from Jordan campaign manager Kevin Eichinger. “Many of the now-resolved discrepancies stemmed from donations being reported on the deposit date instead of the process date. At no point was there ever any money missing from the campaign. Today our campaign paid the conciliation settlement early, and the issue is now resolved.”

Paperwork Jordan’s new treasurer filed last year with FEC said Jordan’s campaign initially reported most of the contributions at issue during the reporting period when they were entered into the campaign’s reporting database, instead of the date when they were processed online, which occurred during a different reporting period.

Starting with the campaign’s last reports from the election cycle that ended in 2018, treasurer Thomas Datwyler said he amended the reports to accurately reflect the amounts of receipts for the reporting period in which the credit card contributions were processed by the credit card company. Letters Datwyler sent to the FEC said his review also corrected several duplicate contributions.

“Those expenses were reconciled and amended to reflect the correct amounts of the disbursements, rather than the errors that had been included in the original reports,” Datwyler wrote.

Eichinger attributed some of the accounting difficulties to the campaign’s adjustment to processing skyrocketing donations as Jordan’s national profile grew during Donald Trump’s presidency.

During the two-year period before Trump took office, Jordan raised $733,416 for his re-election, spent $422,967 and ended up with $1.3 million in his treasury, according to statistics compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine. Over the next two years, his campaign took in $1,241,417 and spent $1,809,464. The bulk of his donations came from Ohio during both of those election cycles. From 2019 through 2020, Jordan raised $18,637,140, spent $13,268,968 and finished with more than $6 million in the bank.

Jordan currently has $8,389,295 in his campaign coffers, according to his new campaign finance report. The report says Jordan raised $1,284,813 and spent $912,143 between April 14 and June 30.

The political action committees that gave him $5,000 donations in that period include those that represent the Automobile Dealers Association, the National Grocers Association and the National Association of Home Builders. Koch Industries’ PAC gave him $2,500 in that time and the National Rifle Association’s PAC gave $1,000.