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ICYMI – Rep Hagedorn Breaks Ethics Rules, Funnels Tax Dollars to Staff & Mystery Company

08/17/2020

On Saturday, the Minnesota Reformer broke a shocking story about corruption and self-dealing from Congressman Jim Hagedorn’s office.

According to the Reformer, Hagedorn spent over $100,000 in taxpayer money at Invocq Technologies LLC, a company owned by one of Hagedorn’s staff, a clear violation of House Ethics Rules.

Hagedorn also spent almost $340,000 at Abernathy West, a “mysterious company that has existed for less than a year and seems to have gone to great lengths to conceal its ownership, according to publicly available Congressional spending records and business registration filings.”

In the Reformer’s story, government ethics expert Norm Ornstein described Hagedorn’s spending as “like neon signs flashing red signals all over the place” and said this breach of ethics rules was “a real test of the Ethics process. If you don’t crack down on something like this, you’ve really lost your way as an Ethics Committee.”

DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement: 

“I’m shocked and appalled to learn that Congressman Jim Hagedorn spent months breaking ethics rules by funneling over $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to one of his own staff members, then refused to fire the staff member involved. It is even more disturbing that Hagedorn spent almost $340,000 at Abernathy West, a company that just sprung up and has gone through incredible great lengths to conceal their ownership. For all we know, Hagedorn himself could own Abernathy West and could be pocketing hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars.

“On top of all these scandals, Hagedorn has also been using an absurdly large chunk of his office budget, funded by our tax dollars, to send campaign style advertisements to his constituents. The waste, corruption, and self-dealing of Congressman Jim Hagedorn and his cronies is disgraceful and embodies everything Minnesotans hate about Washington D.C. Crooked politicians like Jim Hagedorn do not deserve the honor of representing Minnesota in the House of Representatives.”

In Case You Missed It

Minnesota Reformer: Congressman spent tax dollars on vendor owned by a member of his staff

By Daniel Newhauser. 8/15/20

“U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn likes to boast on mail he sends to his constituents that his postcards are, “Proudly printed in Minnesota!”

What the Minnesota Republican fails to mention, though, is he paid a Texas-based company  owned by one of his staff members more than $100,000 of taxpayer money to do some of that printing — a business relationship Congressional ethics experts say is a clear violation of government ethics rules.

Hagedorn also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for printing to a separate, mysterious company that has existed for less than a year and seems to have gone to great lengths to conceal its ownership, according to publicly available Congressional spending records and business registration filings.

Both Hagedorn’s office and that company, Abernathy West LLC, did not respond to multiple requests asking who owns the business.”

Read the rest of the story here.