Image of Brandon Todd via Facebook.

Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd is appealing the findings of an Office of Campaign Finance investigation, which this week fined his 2015 special election campaign $5,100 over “irresponsible record keeping.”

The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance issued an order that found Todd’s 2015 campaign violated the District’s Campaign Finance Act by:

Failing to properly report receipts

Failing to properly report credit card deposits

Failing to properly negotiate receipts

Failing to properly report expenditures

Overstatement of Pay-Pal fees

Misstatement of financial activity

But Todd’s campaign says it has “provided all supporting documents to substantiate every campaign contribution and expense,” according to campaign spokesperson Everett Hamilton, who says that they are preparing an appeal, though “it’s premature to speak about the grounds for the appeal.”

This comes after an OCF audit that lasted about a year and half, which found discrepancies The Washington Post first reported on the audit in early April. The audit was sent to the OCF’s general counsel, which can levy fines.

In a May 12 letter to constituents, Todd said that he had provided all the required information and requested OCF close out the investigation, while taking “full responsibility for our data entry reporting” during the election.

According to Wesley Williams, a spokesperson for OCF, the campaign committee has five days to file a motion of reconsideration with OCF or to file a request for a hearing with the Board of Elections, who can review OCF’s order.

Additionally, while OCF has issued almost two dozen letters requesting information about Todd’s 2016 re-election campaign, as WAMU first reported, Williams says that there is no OCF investigation into Todd’s 2016 campaign.

Todd was chosen by Muriel Bowser as the replacement for her Ward 4 council seat after she won the mayoral race in 2014. During the special election in 2015, the campaign treasurer was Ben Soto, who had also served as Bowser’s 2014 campaign treasurer. Hamilton declined to comment about Soto, and whether a future Todd campaign would retain him in that role.

But even as Todd appeals OCF’s findings, there are people who believe the office is already being too lenient. In a statement, Aquene Freechild, the co-director of Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People campaign, called the fine “paltry.”

“We call on Attorney General Karl Racine to seek more serious remedies in the Todd case—including the return of funds accepted illegally by his campaign—and more serious consequences for a campaign that flouted the law in not one but two consecutive contests,” Freechild said.

Racine’s office declined to comment about what steps it may take in Todd’s case. Available options include the AG’s office conducting probe into misdemeanors, or having the U.S. District Attorney deputize someone from the AG’s office to work on a criminal case.

Todd isn’t the only one under fire here. The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance could also be the subject of an investigation from an agency like the D.C. Inspector General—ranging from whether the agency should have disclosed its query into Todd’s campaign finance irregularities when he was running for a full term, to how, exactly, an important audit document went missing.

The D.C. Council Judiciary Committee, which oversees the OCF, is also looking into what happened here. “I have asked the Committee to inquire into the timeline for OCF’s own audit and about their processes in place,” Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Allen told DCist last month. “We already have a Committee hearing scheduled on July 10 to cover several bills around campaign finance, and I fully expect these issues will be discussed.”

OCF Brandon Todd Order by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd

Previously:
WTF Is Going On With Ward 4’s Brandon Todd? An Explainer