Oregon elections officials agreed in a settlement reached on Thursday not to pursue a criminal case against the Democratic Party of Oregon for misreporting a $500,000 donation from Nishad Singh, an executive at disgraced cryptocurrency firm FTX, despite finding during an investigation that party officials knew Singh was the donor.
They also agreed to slash a proposed fine for the false report from $35,000 to $15,000.
According to a stipulation and final order released by the Secretary of State’s Office on Friday, the Democratic Party of Oregon’s compliance director and their contracted fundraiser knew when the donation came in last October that FTX’s director of engineering Nishad Singh was the true donor.
Yet the party chose to incorrectly identify the donor as cryptocurrency wire service Prime Trust in order to grant Singh’s desire to keep his donation secret at a time that Singh was spending FTX customers’ money on political campaigns.
The Democratic Party of Oregon only identified Singh as the donor after The Oregonian/OregonLive contacted Prime Trust in late October to inquire why the company had donated a substantial sum to Oregon Democrats. Party director Brad Martin told The Oregonian/OregonLive at the time that party leaders accepted the cash without knowing much about its origin, even though the contribution marked the largest ever donation received by the party.
Oregon is one of five states with no campaign contribution limits, and some political players who support that status quo point to transparency of campaign transaction reporting as mitigating the influence huge donations. However, elections officials tend to impose mild penalties for breaking the rules. Under Oregon law, it is a Class C felony to make or accept a campaign contribution under a “false name.”
The Democratic Party of Oregon received the $500,000 wire transfer from Prime Trust, the largest contribution the Democrats’ political action committee had ever reported receiving in the 15-year time frame covered by Oregon’s campaign finance database, on October 4, some time after “a fundraiser working under contract with the (Democratic Party of Oregon) communicated with Nishad Singh or his agents about a potential contribution to the (Democratic Party of Oregon),” according to the Oregon Elections Division’s final order on the case.
“Thereafter, the (Democratic Party of Oregon’s) compliance director asked Nishad Singh or his agents whether he or Prime Trust LLC was the ‘donor of record’ for the $500,000 contribution,” according to the document. Singh and his agents did not respond.
On Oct. 7, staff at the Democratic Party of Oregon emailed the contracted fundraiser who had secured Singh’s donation and informed the fundraiser that the party planned to list Prime Trust LLC as a “top contributor on (Democratic Party of Oregon’s) required advertising disclosure,” according to the elections order.
Later on Oct. 7, the fundraiser forwarded the Democratic Party of Oregon’s email to Singh’s representatives, “asking whether the contribution should be in Mr. Singh’s name or in the name of Prime Trust LLC. … Mr. Singh’s representative responded, ‘Nishad prefers Prime Trust (though not strongly) so go w[ith] that. The fundraiser then told the (Democratic Party of Oregon to disclose the contribution as coming from Prime Trust LLC.”
Singh subsequently testified under oath as part of a New York criminal case against FTX executives about his political donations in fall 20222 that, “I knew at the time that the … money had to be coming, effectively, from FTX customer funds.”
The Democratic Party of Oregon ultimately sent mailers attacking Republican governor candidate Christine Drazan that listed Prime Trust as one of the top donors that supported the ads.
On Oct. 9, the party reported to the Secretary of State’s Office that it received $500,000 from Prime Trust.
Three weeks later on Oct. 27, The Oregonian/OregonLive sent an inquiry to Prime Trust about why the company was supporting Oregon Democrats. The news organization also sent questions to the Democratic Party of Oregon but did not hear back from either party by deadline. On Oct. 31, the Democratic Party of Oregon identified Singh as the donor for the $500,000, in responses to The Oregonian/OregonLive and in an amended state campaign finance filing.
In February, officials proposed a $35,000 fine on the Democratic Party of Oregon because the party’s belated disclosure of the true donor violated the deadline to file a correct transaction report. A lawyer for the party placed blame for the misreported donation on Singh’s “false representations” and informed the state that the party planned to fight the fine. The settlement that elections officials reached with the Democratic Party of Oregon on Thursday, the eve of a scheduled hearing on the penalty, will knock the fine down to $15,000.
In the agreement, the Democratic Party of Oregon did not strictly agree to disclose the true identities of all of its donors in the future, but the party did agree to try harder to do so. The agreement specifies that the state can take steps at its discretion to more aggressively monitor whether the party is doing so.
The elections director who oversaw the handling of the investigations, Molly Woon, worked for the Democratic Party of Oregon for three years, as it communications director and deputy director. Former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a Democrat, said it was unnecessary for Woon to recuse herself from the high-profile case. “I have every confidence and faith in Molly’s professionalism, integrity and commitment to fair application of election law and rules,” Fagan said in January.
Fagan forced out the previous elections director Deborah Scroggin, who had spent nearly a decade overseeing elections in the Portland City Auditor’s Office before taking the job with the state in 2021. Fagan resigned May 8 following news that she had accepted a $10,000-per-month side job consulting for a cannabis dispensary chain, at a time when auditors in the Secretary of State’s Office were auditing Oregon’s marijuana regulatory system.
In a statement on Friday, Acting Secretary of State Cheryl Myers said, “The most important part of the settlement are the numerous oversight requirements the DPO has agreed to, including spot checks by Elections Division investigators, to ensure compliance with all state campaign finance laws. In too many cases, people who violate campaign finance laws pay a fine and move on. These oversight requirements will serve the public interest and hold the DPO accountable by ensuring future compliance with campaign finance laws – an outcome that could not have been achieved in court.”
Martin, with the Democratic Party of Oregon, said in an emailed statement that the party welcomed the “closure of a case that boiled down to an individual lying about a donation and the (Democratic Party of Oregon) making the correct information available as soon as it learned about the donor’s lie.”
